Scotiabank Toronto Marathon - Race Week

M 7 miles HA (7:24mm)
T 6 miles HA (7:11mm)
W 6 miles inc. 2 miles at MP (5:53mm)
T 5 miles HA (7:26mm)
F 4 miles inc. 2X2mins at MP (7:17mm)
S 2 miles (8:09mmmm)

Total 31 miles (7:06mm)
Aerobic efficiency 953 beats per mile
Weight 138lbs Vs 138.8lbs last week
Body Fat 8.7% (12.06lbs) VS 9.3% (12.93lbs) last week
Lean Body Mass 86.78% (119.75lbs) Vs 86.1% (119.48lb)  last week
Water 67.8% (93.56 lbs) Vs 66.7% (93.11lbs) last week


As one can see this was a proper taper week with much reduced miles with only a couple of efforts throughout the week to remind the legs what was coming pace wise.


I mentioned last week that I would carb deplete (Sunday-Thursday AM) which I knew from experience that it would mean feeling pretty rank and my runs feeling extra tough in a glycogen depleted state. This is how runners of the 80's used to do it and it seemed to work quite well for them and as I've had some good race experiences off the back of it, I thought it was worth doing again. My food intake was largely made up of fat and protein which resulted in me losing a bit more weight (the weight recorded above is the average Monday -Thursday as I decided not to take my scales to Canada (maybe I'm not that obsessive after all?!?!) although I did take them down to Gatwick for one final carb depleted weigh in (so maybe I am?!?!). It's really interesting being on a carb restricted diet as you literally shed fat! Of course in a glycogen depleted state it means your body has to work harder at any given intensity to oxidise fat as fuel and as such my aerobic efficiency went down significantly Monday-Thursday but this was to be expected and while I would have let it bother me in the past (so much so that I have tended to bin the HR monitor in race week) I feel more confident these days that elevated HR is bound to happen in this state so wanted to continue to record it as my experiment of one continues.

I drove down to Gatwick on Wednesday with Steve Bayton and Carl Ryde ahead of our flight on Thursday  morning and it was good chewing the fat regarding all things running. :-)

Thursday morning, it was back onto carbs with the plan of 10-12 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body weight, so aiming for 620-750 grams of carbohydrate per day. I had sliced up my trusty banana soreen (and packed an extra couple of loaves) and packaged handy 80g bags of plain cornflakes to snack on during the flight. We landed Thursday afternoon and I didn't feel too jaded but did go to bed at 8pm local time, which was still equivalent of 1am back home!

I went out for a run early doors with Kojo Kyereme and Kevin Rojas on Friday morning and the difference with glycogen in my legs was incredible. My heart rate was trickling along as if I was asleep and even when I raised the effort to around marathon pace my heart rate was at very efficient levels.

Friday we went to the Expo and felt a little like celebrities as we mingled with the other Elite Athletes including 10th placer at the Rio Olympics, Eric Gillis at the official press conference. I also met Tim Hutchings who finished 4th at the Olympic 5000m final in 1984! To say I was excited is a little bit of an understatement, I was grinning like a Cheshire cat! Tim is commentating on the race which will be streamed live on the Canada Running Series Youtube Channel. Tim is a brilliant commentator and it would be nice to see him cover more events on the BBC as his knowledge and clear passion for the sport is absolutely first rate. Tim even sounds like he prepares for the events he's commenting on....


The forecast unfortunately wasn't looking too kind for Sunday (a stiff breeze as well as a bit of rain and being unseasonably hot!) which was a little frustrating as it was forecast for good conditions on every other day of our trip. Anyway of course we could only race in the conditions that we found ourselves with on the day but it did mean that the strategy would change a little. It would be important to get into a group that were hoping to go at the same sort of pace for as long as possible! From looking at the start list and chatting with various other runners it seemed that there should be a fair number going off at a similar pace so that would be helpful to share the workload if conditions did end up being crap!

The carb load has gone well and I'm going to start easing off now (c24hours to race!) as I do feel a little full and don't want to hit the start line too bloated. There is a danger with all the lovely free food to overdo it, and I was perhaps guilty of tucking away a bit too much yesterday so today will have to be a lot lighter. One more day of discipline and I can go a bit crazy for a couple of weeks. I may even have a pint!