Like everyone else around the world, we were galvanized by Bianca Andreescu’s performance at the Roger’s Cup and US Open. So we asked Lanni Marchant, one of Canada’s all-time great distance runners, to break down the 19-year-old’s success and funnel it as fuel for runners.
The results are something you can utilize—today.
Beet and Avocado may seem like an unlikely combination in these Mexico-inspired tostadas, but you’ll find that the creamy avocado and delicate beet complement the other ingredients in this dish extremely well. Add these flavours to the bite of red onion and the heat of the jalapeno, and you have a well-balanced dish that can easily be served for lunch or dinner.½ lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 corn tostada shells
1 tbsp lime juice
1 ½ cup beets, peeled, grated
2 avocado, medium
½ tsp cumin, ground
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
8 slices red onion, sliced to 1/4-inch thick rings
cilantro for garnish
DIRECTIONS
ONE: Place chicken breast in small pot and cover with cold water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and poach until cooked through – about 20 minutes. Remove chicken from water and cool. Shred meat into strips and set aside. You can use any leftover cooked chicken for this recipe.
TWO: Cut avocado in half and discard pits. Use spoon to remove pulp. Mash with a for. Mix in lime juice, ground cumin and finely-diced jalapeño. This makes about 2 cups. Set aside.
THREE:Grate the beets until you have 1½ cups (375 mL) and set aside.
Maurizio is a Toronto runner. He runs as a SickKids Warrior, the program where you dedicate your challenge event to fundraising for SickKids. (It’s easy to do. Register to run your next race for SickKids at https://www.sickkidsfoundation.com/events/sickkidswarriors.) A SickKids patient when he was a kid, Maurizio transformed himself, through steely determination, into a runner.
He speaks with passion about his journey:
“I was not a good runner when I started. In fact, I was overweight, I was eating a lot, and couldn’t run one mile without stopping for a much-needed break. Keep that in mind as you overcome your own set of excuses.
It doesn’t matter how busy you are, how slow you run, or if you can even run at all. Running is a learned skill – not a natural talent. Acknowledge where you are. Create an achievable weekly goal. Get out your calendar and find 3 blocks of time each week when you can run. I recommend running in the morning, because you are more likely to succeed early in the day. Run short distances with plenty of walk breaks.
The real key to training for a long distance run is to make running easy and fun. Variety is key. Run on the roads, trails, treadmills, and in your living room. Don’t forget yoga, strength training, and other sports like volleyball. Cross-training is great to make you a better overall athlete – and a better runner.
On the question of why he runs and fundraises as a SickKids Warrior, Maurizio is equally passionate:
“I wanted to give back to SickKids for doing everything they did for me when I was younger. I was born with hydrocephalus, and spent the first 3 months of my life there. Understanding the positive impact that SickKids has on so many children made it the logical choice to give back.”
He offers one last encouragement to other runners to become a SickKids Warrior:
“It’s a great way to allow people to enter the world of compassion. It creates a relationship with SickKids that goes beyond just signing a cheque.”
You can run as a SickKids Warrior, too. Learn more.
On this week’s show a high school coach who agreed to run 50 kilometres if his team won their championship. Then, how and why one runner got back into the sport after a long break. Plus, find out what it feels like to get into the Boston Marathon.
It’s getting late and I fly home tomorrow but I know I won’t sleep. I never do after a marathon.
Today I ran the Berlin Marathon and placed 12th with a time of 2:32:27, my 5th fastest time (2:28 in 2013, 2:29 in 2015, 2:32 x 2 in 2012). I was ranked 15th by personal best times (I may have had one of the oldest personal bests) entering the race. I also finished as the first masters runner, which makes a good headline, but wasn’t what I came for. Berlin was about speed, running fast according to my abilities on the fastest course in the world, with what often has the best conditions. Now I’m not going to go on and on, complaining about the conditions. The message at the technical meeting, which proved to be true was, “It won’t be terrible and it won’t be great. It will be somewhere in between.” It was.
I know I was in ~2:30 shape, hoping to squeeze under the 2:29:30 Tokyo 2020 Olympic standard. Very similar to my first 2:32 when going after the London 2012 Olympic standard of 2:29:55, race day would have to be perfect. We had some wind with gusts, humidity of 90 at the finish, and in the second half, light rain that made the roads slick, almost mossy-like. In my 19 marathons, I’ve only had one race with perfect conditions – in 2013 when I ran my personal best of 2:28:32 at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. There certainly were some incredible performances today—Bekele just missing the world record by 2 seconds and Sara Hall’s 2:22, to name a few. There were some disappointments. And a lot of us were somewhere in between.
I knew there’d be a handful of women with male pacers, aiming for 2:29:30, so I didn’t concern myself with bodies with whom to run. What I didn’t expect was the very large number of men also going for just under 2:30. For a good chunk of the beginning it was almost too much, particularly when we had to move to the side to get our drinks. It was necessary to signal your turn and check your blind spot. Really. Fortunately I had no major contact with anyone and was able to retrieve and consume all 8 Eload bottles with taped Endurance Tap gels, as well as the additional ⅘ bottles in the later parts of the race (I chose to leave the first of 5 extra bottles), a Berlin bonus thanks to 2016 Olympic gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge who requested this last year when he earned his world record time in Berlin. Running with others certainly had its advantages. There was never a time I was on my own and I likely had some moments where I was protected from some wind. I was focused on the blue lines in order to keep the tangent, and kept my thinking simple, “You came here for one thing.”
I went through half at 1:15:04. I’ve never had a negative split so knew that I’d really need to push in the second half. The problem was knowing how much to push while still respecting another 21.1 km and not wanting it to get ugly. With the extra bottles I could consume more energy, but again had to ride the fine line between just enough and not too much. No one wants GI distress. Been there, done that (fortunately just once).
The crowds were wonderful and I enjoyed the Canadians cheering my name. I plugged away, one kilometre at a time, knowing it was slipping away. I wasn’t going to mentally check myself out of the race so continued to give. It didn’t have to be all or nothing. Like Boylston of Boston, once I saw the Brandenburg Gate I decided I’d finish with a smile on my face.
Always gratitude.
When chatting in the recovery tent after with another finisher, I asked her if she’d mind checking my placing. A top 10 at a world major or top 10 at major championship (like Lyndsey Tessier’s 9th in Doha at world champs, just two days ago! We’re on the cover of the current Canadian Running magazine with a focus on masters, including new-to-the-club, Reid Coolsaet) or top 5 at a gold label was as good as a 2:29:30. I figured it was unlikely, but you rarely see drop outs and it’s often impossible to know your placing during the race. It was somewhat disappointing that I was so close to 10th but I think I’d rather be a few minutes off 2:29:30 and placings off 10th, than off a few seconds and one placing. I later learned that the 9th, 10th and 11th women, who wanted sub 2:29:30, were all 2:31-mid, one minute ahead of me so at least it wasn’t close.
I headed back to the hotel, checked and sent some messages then met up with my cousin and his wife and wonderful group of Team Hoyt friends. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon together and some pizza for dinner. On my way back to the hotel I got some baklava with a scoop of vanilla ice cream from a nearby Greek restaurant to be savoured back in my room in my pyjamas.
I’ve got a dark chocolate bar and new book on my kindle for the trip home. My hamstrings will be thrilled with two empty spots beside me on the plane, like on the way here, but that’s highly unlikely. One can hope.
In a day I’ll be back to making school lunches, my dietitian job, coaching cross country and hockey, and taxiing kids to the pool and rink.
So much to be grateful for.
Photograph by Trevor Dickie.
Many would agree that climate change is the most important issue of our time.
Extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and unpredictable environmental, social, and economic impacts all factor in to this pending crisis. Thanks to films An Inconvenient Truth and National Geographic’s Before The Flood, as well as global movements like the climate strikes in more than 150 countries this September led by teenager Greta Thunberg, there has been a shift in the thought of climate change: act now.
As it stands, much of the publicized effects of climate change, like rising sea levels and the melting of Arctic ice, are relatively unseen by most. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Well, as we explore below, the trickle-down effects of climate change, including for runners who view the sport as near-sacred, are becoming increasingly apparent. And, as science suggests, we’re trending in the wrong direction.
Climate change refers to a long-term shift in weather conditions as measured by various factors including temperature, precipitation, winds and a few other metrics. However, naturally, the world’s climate is variable over time.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, human activity, thanks to a fossil fuel-driven economy, has drastically increased carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, which affects the Earth’s energy balance. Carbon dioxide is the main cause of human-induced climate change, according to Environment Canada. Industrialization, deforestation, and large scale agriculture also have an effect on the world’s climate.
The effects of widespread warming are evident in many parts of Canada and are projected to intensify in the future. In Canada, these effects include more extreme heat, less extreme cold, longer growing seasons, shorter snow and ice cover seasons, earlier spring peak streamflow, thinning glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rising sea level. Because some further warming is unavoidable, these trends will continue, according to Environment Canada’s 442-page Canada’s Changing Climate Report.
When we as runners are inconvenienced, that’s just a small sample size of the trickle-down effects of climate change. And perhaps those micro-effects could have the largest impact on our behaviour.
In recent years, several Canadian races have been cancelled directly due to the weather. In 2019, for example, organizers halted the Calgary Police Half-Marathon, while the Cape Fiddlers Marathon was cancelled because of Hurricane Dorion. Other notable events to fall victim include the Whistler 400 and Fat Dog 120 in 2017 and 2018, respectively, though this list is far from exhaustive.
However, forest fires, hurricanes and other extreme weather are normal in nature. But, what’s worrying is the intensification, and frequency of such events.
“Extreme hot temperatures will become more frequent and more intense,” Canada’s Changing Climate Report continues. “This will increase the severity of heat waves, and contribute to increased drought and wildfire risks. While inland flooding results from multiple factors, more intense rainfalls will increase urban flood risks.”
This is not to mention the impact that climate change would have on coastal cities.
Since 1993, the average rate of sea level rise is 3.2 mm per year, according to data from the World Meteorological Organization. What’s more alarming is that between May 2014 and 2019, the rise has increased to 5 mm per year. According to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, 570 low-lying coastal cities face drastic challenges within the next 50 years based on current projections. Two of those cities are home to marathons that Canadians love to travel to every year: New York City and Miami. When Hurricane Sandy hit coastal United States in 2012, race organizers — granted at the last-minute — cancelled the (then-) I.N.G. New York City Marathon because of floods and damage to the city’s infrastructure.
For coastal runners in Canada, the news isn’t good either. According to Environment Canada’s Changing Climate Report, “local sea level is projected to rise, and increase flooding, along most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada.”
What’s clear is that running is vulnerable to external variables including extreme weather. But because races are one-offs each year, the likelihood of cancellation is quite low, so the impact may not be felt. What does, and will continue to, affect runners is the temperature.
In July, RunRepeat posted a study that analyzed a staggering amount of data — 19.6 million marathon results from over 30,000 marathons — and shared their results online. Titled, How Much is Climate Change Slowing Down Runners, the authors found that the average runner slows by 1:25 for his/her marathon finish time for each additional degree of Fahrenheit. (1 F = 0.56 C, roughly.)
A similar study, entitled, Effects of Warming Temperatures on Winning Times in the Boston Marathon, published in 2012, found that “a 1.6 C warming in annual temperatures in Boston between 1933 and 2004 did not consistently slow winning times because of high variability in temperatures on race day.” However, winning time was studied in that case, not the field’s average.
We spoke with Paul Ronto, RunRepeat’s Director of Content, who co-authored the research with Vania Andreeva Nikolova, who has a Ph.D. in Mathematical Analysis.
“Climate change is also causing drastic swings in temperatures causing issues like extremely high temperatures on race days like Chicago saw in 2007,” he says. And who can forget Boston’s history? Since 2007, the race has experienced crazy winds, sweltering heat, and near-freezing temperatures, all within just over a decade.
Because a runner’s time is so dependent on a variety of external (let alone internal) factors, it’s tough to pinpoint the exact effect of heat. We asked Ronto how they concluded the link between temperature rise and the slowing of finish times.
“What we did in this study was to look specifically at average finish time and temperatures to see if there was any direct correlation and we found that temperatures on race day are responsible for over 30% of finish time variances, which puts temperatures as one of the largest factors in runner’s finish times,” Ronto says.
For example, Ronto sent over data specific to the Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon that shows the trend remains true for the nation’s capital. “Again a strong correlation to finish times and temperatures,” he says.
“I think it’s a great anecdote for how pervasive this issue [climate change] really is,” he says. “What’s surprising is that no one talks about the small changes we are seeing, they talk about rising sea levels and melting ice caps, but those are not accessible to the everyday person. What other daily tasks like running are affected by climate change? My hope is that these small changes that affect everyone are the catalyst of change.”
Perhaps it’s when these small changes, inconveniences if you will, begin to disrupt our daily lives in an impactful way that we will see change on the most basic level.
Climate change has changed the way organizers plan races.
The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Canada’s top marathon which hosts more than 25,000 runners each year, has a number of initiatives in place to accommodate the changing climate, and to reduce its footprint.
To get an idea of how Canada Running Series, the organizers of the race, handles unpredictable weather, we chatted with event director Charlotte Brookes. “Weather and climate change has definitely shifted the way we plan for events and what we need to consider due to how unpredictable the weather has proven to be regardless of season.”
A combination of working with local organizations and the city to build out a contingency plan, adopting a world-class alert system, and communication with participants ensures that organizers are ready for a variety of conditions on race day. “We have lightning detectors, wet bulb globe thermometers, policies and plans around wind levels as well as lightning/thunder proximity thresholds and for the first time this year we have started using Weather Ops through Odyssey Medical with an on-call meteorologist.”
In terms of what’s being done, the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is one of the leaders in the sport.
Speaking to Parvati Magazine, race director Alan Brookes says, “we were the first-ever event in Toronto to receive Gold level certification by the Council for Responsible Sport. Our races are bottle-free, and registration is paperless. Our cups are composted. All leftover food is donated to Second Harvest. We’re always looking to improve our green plans and are working to implement new measures and improve existing efforts at our events.”
Meanwhile, the New York Road Runners, the organizers of the New York City Marathon, recently signed on to the UNFCCC’s Sports for Climate Action Framework in striving towards sustainability.
Off the roads, select Canadian trail races are cup-less at water stations, encouraging participants to bring their own reusable bottles to reduce single-use plastics.
On the brand side, New Balance recently announced two major climate commitments focused on cutting emissions and relying on sustainable energy sources. Here in Canada, MEC is shutting all of its stores so employees have time off to attend the climate strikes.
“We are members of this Co-op because we share a love of the outdoors,” says MEC CEO Phil Arrata. “It’s time to act so we can protect it for generations to come.”
How bad will it get before we’re able to implement major change? Time will tell.
This meal is perfect for weekdays or weekends, because of its ease and versatility. That means, you can substitute just about any vegetables you have on hand for the spinach. Consider using peas, Swiss chard, asparagus, mushrooms, or kale.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Makes: 4-6 servings
INGREDIENTS
DIRECTIONS
ONE: Sauté onion in olive oil. Add garlic. Sauté an additional 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, water, salt, pepper and pasta. Bring to a boil.
TWO: Lower heat to a simmer and cook until pasta is cooked through but still al dente.
THREE: Add water along the way if pasta begins to dry out. The liquid will gradually reduce and
leave a creamy, thickened sauce. Make sure there is some liquid left in the pan as pasta
will continue to absorb until it begins to cool.
FOUR: In the last few minutes of cooking, add spinach, capers, sundried tomatoes and turkey. Mix to incorporate.Remove from heat.
FIVE: Add butter (for extra creaminess) and cheese.
Learn how to recognize when your training is becoming too much for your body to handle.
By Pamela Mazzuca HBSc. Kin, Athletic Therapist
Avid runners, by nature, are typically highly competitive and usually type A personality. It’s what motivates you to run through snow storms, torrential rain and to keep going even when your body begins to give out. Friends and family, who are not runners, simply can’t understand that level of discipline and dedication. And while these are admirable characteristics, this can be your demise when it comes to overtraining and injuries.
Overtraining occurs over time, it’s a slow process. It’s caused by a training program that lacks periodization, adequate rest and recovery – reaching too far in a single training cycle, not taking a break after a big race or integrating too many intense speed workouts into your program.
The best way to avoid overtraining is to alternate your workouts between high intensity intervals and low intensity endurance workouts. It’s also important to vary training loads with mandatory rest and follow the principle of progression. It can also be helpful to use a training log to monitor your runs as well as your resting heart rate, perceived rate of exertion, mood and energy levels as changes in any of these can be an early warning sign of overtraining.
Other red flags to be on the look out for are sore, sluggish or tight muscles, loss of appetite, sudden weight loss or gain, frequent colds, sleep problems and irritability. If you are experiencing any of these symptom or think you might be overtraining try two days of really easy training and if on the third day you still don’t feel good you need to give your body a rest before you become injured. It’s recommended that you rest for three to eight weeks depending on the severity of your overtraining and how quickly your body bounces back. The earlier you recognize the signs of overtraining, the faster you will be back out hitting the pavement. In the meantime, be patient and take care of your body with proper nutrition, stretching, massage and lots of sleep.
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