Training for the BMO Vancouver Half Marathon is basically done with the race coming up in eight days. I've been running five days a week for the last few months, taking Monday and Friday off as a rest day. That's been good in terms of being able to build back fitness and also to avoid injury through over-stress of my legs.
But as we head into the nicer weather, I'm considering going back to daily running for a while. I don't think I want to do a streak of any length; I just want to add back in Monday and Friday and enjoy the benefits of running every day.
When I say I don't want to do a streak, what I mean is that I'd avoid getting back into that mode where I would run everyday no matter what. I did that one year to run "every day" for 365 days in a row and that comes with some special challenges around scheduling in runs.
I've not fully decided on this yet, but coming out of Vancouver, and once I'm back in Toronto again and not having to go into the office, I plan to go back to running every day that I can.
A Sunday Race Pace Test
With three weeks to go until the 2024 BMO Vancouver Half Marathon, it was time to do a good race pace test to see where I am at. My Garmin watch would have me believe that about a 1:40:00 half marathon is possible, but my Stryd power meter says I should aim for a 1:51:00.
I figured reality is closer to the Garmin prediction than the Stryd one, mostly because I don't have a hard effort over a long run for teh Stryd algorithm to use. Today was the day to fix that.
The plan was to run about 22km with a 5km warmup to get to the Martin Goodman Trail (MGT) and away from any traffic lights or stops. I set out with the rest of the usual Sunday group in a downpour. By the time we got to the 5km mark, I was ready to just skip the race pace portion, if I'm honest.
KM Pace
1 4:17/km (affected by GPS interference downtown)
2 6:13/km (affected by GPS interference downtown)
3 5:38/km
4 5:36/km
5 5:59/km
The first km of the race pace portion, I ran what I thought was a comfortable pace. When the split came up as 5:01/km for the sixth kilometre, I was a bit surprised. I decided to keep that pace up and see how far I got before things got tough.
The next four kilometres were steady with the pace coming down just a bit, although the tail end of kilometre 6 and the start of 7 included the Legion Hill. Kilometre 10 included the uphill to the Humber Bridge where we stopped for about a minute to wait for the group to bunch up.
KM Pace
65:01/km
74:56/km
84:54/km
94:53/km
105:02/km
I wasn't really interested in standing around, so I set back off solo from here and started running eastbound back towards downtown. Kilometre 11 included the downhill for the Humber Bridge and kilometre 13 had the uphill at Legion Hill again.
KM Pace
114:51/km
125:00/km
135:07/km
144:59/km
155:00/km
Suffice to say, I was pretty pleased at this point. I had five kilometres of race pace to run, and I was feeling pretty good. There was a bit of fatigue, but I was also 15km into a pretty tough run at a strong pace. I held the pace through kilometres 16 and 17 (which included a short traffic light stop at Bathurst). Kilometre 18 has a touch of uphill with a bit of downhill over a bridge and then it's a straight shot for 19 and 20. I was pushing it a bit here, like I would at the end of the race to see if I had that little bit more to give.
KM Pace
164:58/km
175:01/km
184:55/km
194:48/km
204:49/km
At 20km, I shut it down and walked for a few hundred metres through some muddy, flooded sections of the MGT at Parliament. Once I got back across Lakeshore at Cherry St., I started the run again and tossed a 5:05 kilometre in for good measure. That was not the cooldown I had planned! Oh well.
KM Pace
216:38/km
225:05/km
All in all, that was a great run and a really good race pace effort. Stryd took that run and recalculated my Critical Power to 281w (up 10w). My predicted finish time for BMO Vancouver Half Marathon came down to 1:40:39 which I think is probably doable given the nature of the course.
It's been a long, tough slog to get back to feeling good when I run longer distances. Today I did 16.5km with the usual Sunday crew and felt strong and in control the entire way. I had pace from start to finish and cruised to the end with lots left in the tank.
The BMO Vancouver Half Marathon is six weeks away and I'm starting to think I can run a decent time. There's more training to do and more fitness to get back, but right now I'd say a 1:45 half is within reach on the right day.
Max Heart Rate
I've always just used the standard(ish) formula to determine my max heart rate and then the various heart rate zones to train in. The one I liked is the 207 - 0.7 x age method. For me that results in a max heart rate of 170bpm.
Recently, I was watching some YouTube videos that suggested it would be far better to determine your actual max heart rate through an informal or formal fitness test. So, today I set out to do that.
The run was structured like this:
Easyish first kilometre to get at least a little bit warmed up and ready to push things hard.
Two more kilometres at escalating pace to get up to a higher heart rate and ready the body and mind for a big effort.
800m at close to maximum effort to ramp things up and stress the body more.
Short slower 400m to recover and then...
A very hard effort for as long as was sustainable, on a moderate incline just to add to the fun.
The result of this was that I hit 161bpm at the top end of that last effort. I probably could have gone another 15 seconds and maybe pushed up the heart rate a few bpm more, but that was me really giving it everything. So let's call it 165bpm?
That seems reasonable to me, although the various calculations would have me at about 170bpm. That seems a bit high for me, but I also have a genetically lower heart rate including a resting heart rate in the low 40's and when I'm really working on the marathon training, in the high 30's.
I might repeat that test at some point here and perhaps push just a bit more, or maybe just run a flat out 5km on a track and see what happens. The other option would be to do a proper VO2 Max and max heart rate test at one of those places that hooks you up to a mask on a treadmill and tries to get you to pass out while running.
Spring Race Plans
I had thoughts of running a spring marathon, but after a few weeks of training, I came to realize that neither my body nor my heart are in it. Instead it's plan B which is to run the 2024 BMO Vancouver Half Marathon.
As of last week, we're all signed up and I adapted my training schedule for a half marathon instead. I've run the BMO Vancouver Marathon many times, but never the 21.1km option. I'm looking forward to it.
The plan is to run a mileage-heavy half program with longer-than-usual Sunday runs. I'll likely have multiple Sunday runs over 21.1km before race day.