Scott McMillan : Endurance Junky

Haven’t posted in awhile I have been busy with work, taking a course, working on some side projects etc. My only real “endurance training” has come from riding to work. I have continued to hit the climbing gym a couple times a week and even managed to get out to Squamish with Chris last weekend which was an awesome experience, he is a great guy for taking me out since I am such a newbie and he is a seasoned climber. Chris even pushed me to do my first sport “lead” (trad gear was placed) which was nerve racking, I can’t really fathom placing gear right now.

I am still improving but not enough to hit my 5.11d goal but April, could be close though.

The Rock Junky?

Flickr Set

Brilliant video on the San hunting Kudu. This is what real “hunting” is not capping animals with high a high powered laser scoped rifle while sitting on a camp chair 800 meters away drinking Bud.

For those who find this interesting I highly recommend reading Why We Run by by Bernd Heinrich he discusses other tribes who practiced this method.

This was scooped from Scott Dunlap’s blog.

Went snowshoeing for the first time this year on the North Shore mountains with Tara up on Mt. Seymour. Quite surreal 30 mins away is downtown Vancouver where it is above 0C and the grass is green.

There were some weird ice formations on the trees near the peak, the winds caused the ice to freeze/melt horizontal to the ground in places quite a cool effect.

Well the holidays are almost over for me (Monday is the official end), I am back in Vancouver after spending time in Mission visiting Tara’s family, Saskatoon visiting my parents and Calgary visiting my sister and brother in-law. Tara and I were spoiled like always. We consumed way too much food drink and now I have even more lbs to remove from the frame (will really have to go into monk mode next week). We had fun though and had some great days hiking, XC skiing and snowshoeing (trail description) in Kananaskis with Chantal and Chris.

Here are some videos of my sister and I shredding hardcore on the XC skiis in Kananaskis.

Chantal shredding hardcore: Part 1

Chantal shredding hardcore: Part 2

Me tearing up the XC trails hardcore (sarc).

No posts for awhile I haven’t been doing much running wise been busy with work and feeling a little under the weather. I have been hitting the climbing gym weekly for last few months though and have been progressing quite rapidly. I feel great in that respect very strong and “solid”, one thing runners become is weak their legs and cardio are strong but overall we are a feeble breed, this was very evident when I first hit the gym I was quite pathetic. I used to be very strong, I weight trained for hockey, football and track and field but the last 4 years I pretty much stopped that. Now that I am hitting the climbing gym I realize how much I miss that “strong feeling” I also realize how truly addicting climbing is. I can’t wait to return to the gym each week to finish “projects” I couldn’t do from the previous session. I also have a friendly competition with a friend who has been climbing for several years on who can do a 5.13 first (he is close he can climb 5.12’s) I am not. My advantage over him is I have more natural strength he has more climbing experience and climbing specific strength but each time I go to the gym things click and I get stronger should be interesting.

So the Epic training day… on Friday Chris called and said do you want to ride out to the Coquitlam Cliffhanger on Saturday climb till our arms fall off then ride home… being a glutten for suffering I said sure. This turned out to be one of the harder training days I have ever done, I felt completely wiped when I got home, 2.5 hours of riding and 2 hours of climbing will do this to you.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of running on the VFAC Open Mixed team in the Haney to Harrison Relay race. This race marks the end of the running season for many runners so it is a fun event for many but is also very competitive amongst the club teams and also amongst the leg runners. This was my second time running the race, the first time I was on VFAC’s “fast” team the Open Men which was fun also but not as low key as being on a mixed team (must be from the lower testosterone levels). Our team had a goal of medaling which we accomplished actually placing first in our division beating out 41 other teams. Everyone ran really well on our team. Trudi ran long because of a marshaling error in Stage one, Sue ended up running 2 legs(hardcore), Ryan, Chris and Trefor had solid runs also. I have to say I was the slow one on our team… I was really pumped to run well on my leg (stage 3) which is arguably the toughest leg in the race due to the fact you are blasting straight up and out of Stave Lake from the gates. I was confident my normally above average hill climbing could propel me to a decent placing but 2 things prevented me from that. 1) Taking off way to fast (look at my HR data below) and 2) my hamstrings were very tight probably from the race the previous weekend and my first interval session with VFAC since June the Thursday prior to the H2H. Anyhow besides my sub par run I had a blast especially the social aspect afterwards at the pub in Harrison. I am looking forward to defending our title next year and improving on my leg time.

Run Data
Time: 1:03:03
HR: Ave 180, Low 170, High 202 (that is called blowing your gasket in the first 2k!!!)

HR/Elevation

Leg 3

I am finally back in action! This weekend I raced the Hallow’s Eve Half Marathon which is part of the Ironlung trail series. I wasn’t planning on running this event but Eric emailed me asking if I wanted an entry so I thought why they hell not I need to get a quality run in before the H2H the following weekend. I am glad I did, it was a very challenging course and a fun event.

As far as the race went I felt pretty solid the whole time considering this was my first race since April. The downfall of the race for me was the technical sections where I lost a lot of time, especially on the Griffin Trail (which I have to say may be the most technical trail I have ever run on) I was passed by 4 runners who flew by me like I was standing still in that section! The other hard part about this course for me(and everyone else I suspect) was the large number of stairs, especially the killer set on the Baden Powell going west from the Lynn Headwaters. Stairs in a trail race are hell, it ruins all your momentum and floods your legs with lactic acid. I say it would be like having to stop running during a road race and then pounding of a set or 2 of weighted lunges and then trying to continue on at your normal race pace, not easy.

The race had some outstanding performances by VFAC runners Simon Driver(1:33:06) and Katrina Driver(1:41:26) both took first place breaking the previous course records held by themselves. Simon’s time is mind boggling, to run that pace would be hard for most people in a road race but to do that on a technical and very hilly trail run well that is something. I would say they are the fittest couple in British Columbia.

My Data:
Finishing time: 1:53:46
Place overall: 20
Ave HR 176 bpm - Zone 4.8

Elevation/HR Chart

Course Route

Training works. It’s interesting how 2 months ago a 1:30 hilly trail run was tough now a 3 hr run is hard but not that hard. All my little pains have disappeared. I felt really solid on Saturday’s 3 hr long run. I am still doing the carb restriction on my run which is starting to be a little daunting I definitely started to bonk around 2:45. I spent 2:20 in zone 3 and the rest in zone 4 average HR on the run of 151. My ave HR has also lowered dramatically. For instance Saturday’s long run was from my place to Cleveland Dam I ran this route 6 weeks ago at the same pace and did not extend the run at the end like this Saturday and my average HR was 163… training works.

Other new things this was my 3rd week of training with Stoltz in the climbing gym. He has me doing a “base training” routine for climbers lots of repeats of easy 5.8-5.9 I usually 2-3 then he does 6 of 5.10(he is a machine) x 6 sets, he is preparing for his Christmas climbing trip, I am just tagging along to hopefully fit enough to do some epic stuff next season. I already feel stronger and more “solid” in the core and upper body. He said I will not gain any bulk from this type of climbing and it may help my running with the new core and upper body strength it will give me. With all this mountain running and climbing I am starting to feel odd almost like a different person quite interesting really.

Amazing really if you think about it. I would like to run that pace for well 1k…

Haile Gebrselassie broke the marathon world record in Berlin on Sunday, posting an official time of two hours, four minutes and 26 seconds.

The 34-year-old Ethiopian beat the mark of 2:04:55 set by Kenya’s Paul Tergat in Berlin in September 2003.

Gebrselassie was already 32 seconds inside Tergat’s pace at the 10km mark and went through halfway at 62.29.

Link.

This weekend was my first double long session in several years and I forgot how hard they are and I didn’t even go that long!
Sat 1:38 Hilly, Sunday 1:51 hilly just over 40k for the two days, the other workouts for the week where 2 x 1:10 minutes runs on the trails. This is a key workout for training for long trail races, you basically attempt to simulate running on fatigued legs while pushing a large number of miles into the legs in short time spans. I will try to build my Saturday’s up to 3:30-4 by first week of November followed by a 2-2.5 hour on the Sunday. The race will be a hellish nightmare if I don’t get these runs in. The biggest plus of these back to backs longs is the weight falls of in buckets and we all know that this is the real key to running (good NY Times article on that).