Colum Furey

Police Half lookback

May 5, 2012 Running No comments

It’s been a little over a week, but I’ve been looking back on the Police Half now.

I beat me conservative goal time, but honestly missed my target by quite a bit and didn’t get close to my PB.

I ran a 1:53:41 and finished 462nd, about half way through my age group at 127/255. Average pace was 5:23

I had been aiming to run a 5:00/km pace for somewhere around 1:45:00 finish.

The race actually started off great. I was having no problem crushing a 4:45 pace. I had a great breakfast and was well hydrated. I couldn’t complain, adrenaline was pumping for the first big race of the year.

Unfortunately, Somewhere around 16km I hit the wall, And hit it hard. After chatting with a few folks much more experienced in sunning than myself, I think there’s a few factors that I didn’t even hit my training pace.

I had debated the whole way to race about bringing my fuel belt. Ultimately, I didn’t bring it. Probably a huge mistake especially given my unfamiliarity with the course. I found myself expecting water stations that just weren’t there around half way thru
Probably could have used a power gel. There were no gels at any of the stations. I know, spoiled for a half, but given I fought the back half it might have helped
The Calgary Comic Book Expo.. and more importantly, the TNG Exposed Show the night before. I didn’t get to sleep until ~1am the night before the race and had been drinking for the health of it most of the day before. Although running lore claims/jokes this can be good carb loading, I think I can testify it’s shit. Especially when coupled with about 5 and a half hours of sleep.
Total unfamiliarity with the race route. I’ve trained on the glenmore reservoir trail before, however the race didn’t go the whole way around the reservoir, instead it went to the streets and introduced hills I didn’t know where there. The real kicked was that from kilometer 16 all the way back to the finish line was a Hill I hadn’t saved up for. Without about 1.5 km left, I was reduced to a walking pace of ~7:00/km until I had to breakdown and walk for a few meters to catch my breath. Meltdown..

So, key lessons for the marathon.

I’m bringing my fuel belt, I don’t care if it’s baby blue
I’m bringing my own gels. (actually found a huge cheap supplier on atheli.ca) I have 48 being shipped by fed-ex right now
Wearing the heart rate monitor to keep an eye on strain
Getting to bed at 8pm the night before
Pack at least 1 Tylenol in my belt

We’ll see how it goes. Re-learning some painful lessons

Running Realization

April 22, 2012 Uncategorized No comments

Surprisingly, I’ve been more or less sticking to my training programming for the upcoming Calgary marathon. I’m particularly proud of the results yielded by my speed training. At first it was tough to hold 5:50 min/km for a run of any length, now I’m down to running 20km at around 5:10.

Yesterday, I managed to push 26km at 5:15, being dehydrated and over dressed didn’t really help. I had hoped to push sub 5. As I’m getting faster, the long runs have been becoming less tedious. Slow running, especially for long distance is pretty boring.

Yesterday’s run gave my a good boost of confidence despite missing my stretch target. I’ve been playing around with a pace calculator I found on the internet and now I’ve realized, despite my pride in pushing faster and faster I have quite a ways to go.

I’d love to someday run a 3:30:00 marathon.

punching the numbers into the pace calculator has shown I’ve got quite a bit of work, practise and dieting to go…. oh well! Something to work toward.

Check out this pace calculator I found. It’s a simple little HTML tool, but it’s fantastic to play with the scenarios that could unfold

http://www.users.on.net/~klima/rkcalc_mi.htm

Spring Running in Calgary

April 13, 2012 Running, Uncategorized No comments

Growing up in Newfoundland, you develop a resilience to poor, unpredictable weather.
Now in my 4 year of living in Calgary, the unpredictable weather patterns here are beginning to test my resilience. At least in Newfoundland, it was safe to assume that the weather would be generally miserable almost all of the time.

However, on Tuesday after I finished 14km with Jakey, I couldn’t help but boast of how it felt like the best run of the year. Great Pace. Sunshine! OVerall, just a beautiful spring day.

Move Ahead two days to Thursday and the sun was gone. Replaced by probably the worst snowstorm of the entire winter. The snow was wet, heavy, cement like stuff. It stuck to everything and was saturating. I had to run 11km minimum in that storm, just in prep for the 32km I have to run tomorrow. After my clothes had soaked through, it became a game. Cutting first tracks in the slush, watching Jake run along side, snapping at the slush that kicked up from my footprints.

Despite the conditions, I still managed to run an average 5:20 pace, my pace slowing from 5:00 to 5:45 as my waterproof running clothing quadrupled in weight. It was so soaked. So soaked in fact that when we got back to the house, water was literally streaming down me and pool around my feet. While Jen wrangled Jake and toweled him down before he could shake off and ruin everything, I Had little choice but to strip everything into a soaking pile in the porch.

But at least my iPod was protected…. An old newfie running in the rain trick

New Running Gear

April 12, 2012 Uncategorized No comments

Recently my Fuel belt has really started bugging me. It’s alright for the first few miles but generally begins to shift around towards the end of my runs as things become wet with sweat. When I do tempo runs it begins to chafe and there’s not real good place for my iPod. It’s also limited to 4 small water bottles. Great for short runs, not so great for marathon training.

I’ve done quite a bit of research and have decided that with a likely warm summer of running ahead, culminating with the San Francisco Marathon, more water is likely needed. I’ve invested in the best of the best, a hydration vest by Nathan Sports.

The pack I picked was the “Intensity”, it’s 15oz empty and carries 2L of water/etc. With some nice pockets for gels and a zip pocket for my iPhone I’m pretty psyched to get this and start breaking it in. Friday can’t come quick enough!

Emergency

April 11, 2012 Running No comments

On my friend Matt’s advice I’ve started reading a new book that came with his highest recommendations You can imagine my skepticism when I found out it was a book on survival.

It might sound a bit nutty, especially with all this Apocalypse 2012 crap going on but a little research showed that the book is firmly planted on the New York Times best sellers list. A little more digging around and it became apparent this book was nothing short of a phenomenon. A average overall 5 star rating on Amazon is a rare thing, but this book has it, the result of thousands of passionate reviews from converted readers.

So I took the plunge, grumbling the whole time that the e-book version was a few books more expensive than the paperback with shipping!.

Now two chapters in, this book is fantastic. I haven’t picked up a page turner like this in a long time. It’s been hard to put down since I picked it up Sunday. I was enthralled From the opening sequence of the author talking himself into killing his own meal.

The book is the story of the writer’s own quest to become more self sufficient and prepared for anything. After completing the “orientation” section, I have to say I was beginning to rethink just how “prepared” I am for anything other than a nuisance flat tire or forgotten lunch money.

The book isn’t some nutty apocalyptic BS, but rather a tale of the author’s self-transformation from the new knowledge he sought out. It also offers a unique perspective, the author’s opinion on just how fragile everything we hold dear really could be.

Now I’m one of the nuts that highly recommends this book. It plays on your fears, causes you to laugh and tells a hell of a tale about just how easy it could be to be ready for “anything”

Cutting Carbs.. well only the bad ones

April 10, 2012 Uncategorized No comments

I’ve always been a recreational runner, but never really devoted a lot of time to it until I moved to Halifax. It was 5 years ago this month that I was in a 10K running class at the Running Room there. One of my favorite and most memorable lessons from that class was when a guest lecturer gave a presentation of proper nutrition for running. It was all summed up in 2 lines:

“Cut the Crap”

No chips, fatty junk foods, fast foods, not too much red meat, not too much bread/crackers

“The More Colors the Better”

Tonnes of Vegetable and Fruit! Like it says, the more colors on your plate, the better a meal it is for you.

With the Calgary Marathon <8 weeks out, I’ve got a quite a bit of useless added weight to dump.

The rule of thumb is that for every pound shed your race pace can increase ~10 sec/mile, all other things being held constant. So in a last minute push for the best that I can muster I’m taking the two-liner nutritional tip to heart.
I’m axing all refined sugars and carbs from my diet for at least the next couple of weeks.

I’m hoping I can drop 10 pounds by Race day.

Time Use Audit Wrap

April 8, 2012 Business, House & home, Running One comment

A few weeks back I set out to make a rough record on a spreadsheet of where and how I spend my time. The findings weren’t exactly shocking. The big sinks for my time in any given work day were:

- work: 10 hours (office and home)
- transit/commute: 1 hour
- running/gym: 1 – 2 hours
- TV watching: 2-3 hours

So first things first, I’m making a new goal to strike the TV down. This is basically zero activity time and isn’t benefiting anyone. Plus, TV is always better when you watch it via PVR and FFWD the commercials.
I’m going to limit my TV time to max 1 hour per day during the work week.

Transit is easy enough. I’ve been lazy this year and afraid of the gravel left on the roads after winter, however last year I proved time and time again that biking to work was faster than than taking the bus. So I’m going to start in on this again. Also the big benefit being here that I’ll save $’s in transit fare and get some solid cross training in.
Bike to work every day.

Second, I’m going to shake up my work hours. At my current work place the office space is configured as an open office environment (read as: cubicle city). It doesn’t particularly bother me either way but the threat of distraction is ever present. My thought is that while I get my work done, I’m not working as efficiently as possible, leading to longer work hours.
So I’m going to aim to get into work early and leave early. I’ll pack my lunch the night before, get my pack ready with my work clothes so in the morning I can walk and feed the dog and then jump on my bike and finishing getting ready at the gym there.
New work hours of 6:30/7:00 – 3:30/4:00

There’s not really a whole lot I can do about running and gym time. I’m pretty far behind in my Marathon training so the pain is the price.

The Goal here is that I get to bed at a reasonable time, have more time to work on my Business and get my running training in during daylight. Hoping to get 2-3 hours more time in the day with just a little shuffle.

So Far So Good

April 7, 2012 Running No comments

It’s been a pretty solid year for running so far. The start was a bit rough, but I’m closing in on 500km run this year. It’s all in prep for what I hope will be a solid PB for the marathon this year in Calgary. The issue is, What’s next after the Calgary Marathon? I’m not really looking forward to just another summer of drinking…working… repeat. I’m getting hungry for a change.

More Time

March 19, 2012 House & home, Projects No comments

It’s becoming pretty clear now that either there is not enough time in the day for me to do everything I want and Sleep… or I’m not effectively using all the time I have available to me.

With my marathon training program beginning to swing into higher gear, my minimum nightly commitment is ~90 mins, assuming I run 14-15km with a few breaks for water, etc. I’m not a great runner by any measure, but I’m hoping the time I’m putting in with a more appropriate amount of training will hopefully improve my 4 hour time and stave off post race injury.

I’m also trying to build my core up so working in some time on the pullup station and exercise ball is also burning up time.

Work has been insane as of late, I’m busier than I have ever been with no change to that in sight. I generally put in a minimum of a solid 8 or 9 hours at work, often adding the option to work through lunch and even getting suckered into powering the computer on at home in the night to catch up on a tremendous e-mail back-log. Not sure how to get around this, but I can’t really complain, being busy keeps it interesting and it’s infinitely better than the alternative.

And then there is the commute, which shockingly, even on a spring day like today was mayhem, taking almost an hour return despite the fact I like within sight of my workplace. The dream of moving inner city was that our commutes would be <20 mins return. I’m really looking forward to bike commuting again, then I’ll be closer to something tolerable here.

In January I had been doing quite well waking up at 5-530 am, walking the dog enjoying coffee with the paper and working on a few hobby projects before my IM came alive with east coasters and distractions rang out. However, recently with all of the running, it was too difficult to leave the comfortable warmth of the covers.

We’ll see how it goes, the coffee grinder is programmed to go off tomorrow before my alarm. There’s something about the smell of coffee wafting upstairs from the kitchen that really beats any alarm, no matter how melodic the buzzer.

The real drive here to find more time is that I’m a little disappointed in how I’ve let so many of my personal goals slip this year already! I’ve been struggling to find the time to work on tweaking the little rover I’d hopped would be a contestant in a NASA Centennial Challenge. It’ll likely never get there now.

I’ve completely blown the schedule I had made for Developing more iOS apps under my brand name, but I’m determined now more than ever with the investment I’ve made in new hardware to get this back up and running, at least to pay off the investment.

Worse yet is how I’ve slipped on becoming much more active in managing my portfolio. Everything is still in place, but given what’s at stake I need to find time to focus on this. My retirement at 40 depends on it

I’m debating whether or not to complete an audit of how I use my time. When the time I work with completed a similar exercise as part of a LEAN Sigma 6 training session, it was a huge pain. But now, I’m beginning to struggle to find the time to do everything I want done.

I still have the tools that were distributed from that class, so I might just give it a go.

The coffee pot should kick off an early morning tomorrow, so here’s hoping I can “personalize” the time-writing sheets for my purposes in the morning and get a solid week of time-writing in. Then Audit myself after the weekend.

Looking forward to sharing the results

First Race of 2012

March 18, 2012 Uncategorized No comments

Contrary to the popular belief, pints of Guinness and happy hour pizzas do not enhance 10km racing performance.

Back in January, with the guilt of Christmas fueled overindulgence hanging heavy, I’d signed up for a bunch of races. Yesterday was the Diakonos St. Patrick’s Day 10km.

In short it was disastrous. I couldn’t get it together, I was freezing the entire race. My breathing was erratic and my pace was highly variable.

In the end I squeaked in under 53 mins, runnining a 5:16 pace it put me at 52:35.73.

59th overall, 15/33 in my division, right smack in the middle.
I can’t really argue the result, with bare bones training and a terrible pre-race diet I’m really just thankful I didn’t decorate the shoulder of the riverside path somewhere.

If anything, the pain I had to wrestle while trying to squeak a respectable finish is a pretty good motivator to train hard for the next 8 weeks and get back in shape for Calgary Race Weekend.

The continuing burning in my quads, even right now is a nice reminder know just how far I’ve let it go. Time to dust of the gear in the basement and get back training.

« Older Entries