SURPRISE! I’m running the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon!!
DOUBLE SURPRISE! I’ve written 2 blogs in the past 24 hours… quite the news day I know :/
I guess now that the news has broken that I will be toeing that line in Toronto come October 19th, I should bring everyone up to speed on that whole racing and training bit I’ve been doing these days. So here it is… my recovery after Common Wealth Games and my training… look at that, there’s more to life down here in Chattanooga than my burger and beer exploits ;)
I’m sure that a lot of people suspected that I would line up again this Fall for a marathon (I’m a marathoner… what else would I do with my Fall? Run Cross Country? Eek), and I’m sure a lot of you are keeping count that it will be my third marathon this year (one potato, two potato…). Don’t worry, I’m not going to rant on, defending my decision. The truth is, I was a bit surprised myself that I wanted to sign on for another build… even more so that I’d want to return to the scene of the crime from last year where I know there will be added pressure to chase down my own record. Whoa, maybe I should look into that whole cross-country thing. I joke. I joke. I kid. I kid.
(I did… and that stuff is hard work!)
Rather than drive myself bonkers worrying about whether running a fall marathon was a good idea… there was another race or two in my mind outside of Toronto, I decided to follow what I did last year and wait and see how I felt during my recovery from Glasgow.
Very similar to last year I kept Alan in the loop and just got into the groove with training… only this year, it included seeing Dameian twice a week to continue to have my bum kicked into shape and regular physio and massage treatment. Yes ladies and gents, I may actually figure out this damn hip/bum and left calf issue.
Dave and I have been following a very similar training plan from last September and things seem to be clicking. I found I was able to get my mileage back up this time around a bit easier than I did after Boston, and I have been having some pretty speedy workouts – which is great because as much as this blog is about STWM there’s still that 10k champs this Saturday to concern myself with.
I tested my legs out with a small collegiate 5k cross country race “The Belmont Invitational” at the end of August and won it in the same time I won it in last year… consistency is good I guess. I was pretty happy with the effort considering Dameian had destroyed me with a weighted vest strength session the afternoon before and I had a much higher mileage week than I did last year leading into the race.
But holy geeze… that was a one hot and sweaty rust buster.
Next up was the Longboat Island 10k where getting my trip to Kenya covered was on the line. Much like my Spring/Summer season, this was a race I was going to have to train through… fortunately, I was in London for the week leading into the race and was able to get in a quality long run and some mile repeats with Leslie Sexton. I made my way up to Toronto a few days before the race and got in some kilometer repeats with my STWM 2013 pacer Rejean and was tracked down by doping control. Nothing like trying to provide a urine and blood sample after a hard interval session to keep things interesting.
Lanni Marchant returns to Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon
I actually really enjoyed racing on Toronto Island. I took the ferry over with the other runners and got in a good 8 miles before the race kicked off. I was pretty happy with my time and accomplished the mission of the trip… Kenya I’ll be seeing ya soon ;P
Now I’m a few days out from the Oasis ZooRun 10k championships and just about a month out from the Marathon. There really isn’t anything special I can do to make huge gains at this point, but there are a lot of things I could do to wreck the end of what has been a pretty good year.
The plan now is pretty simple… stick to the plan. Run. Rest (aka Research for work). Repeat. Simple works for me… sometimes I hate to think ;)