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Running Journey Unfiltered:
​Motivation・Facilitation ・Reflection

2018 Week 3: Maintaining The Weekly Groove

1/21/2018

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Indoor Track Work

"Taking charge when the weather can’t make up its mind"

That was pretty much summed up last week and continuing on with this week. I switched to an indoor track for my workout. (A) to remind myself of how great it is to not run with some much layers (B) break in my new pair of shoes and (C) get a decent focused training session with minimal disruptions

I went down to the Monarch Park stadium at around Coxwell and Danforth area primarily for their 370.67 metre track (measured from the centre lane and red line around the corners). Other indoor tracks work too, such as York University's Toronto Track and Field Centre or the indoor running tracks within my local community centres in Markham. However, those track laps are significantly much shorter with approximately 240 and 150 metres respectively.
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A post shared by Mike Wan (@mcywan) on Jan 13, 2018 at 11:10am PST

Gradual Mileage Increase

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This year, I am also attempting to raise my weekly running mileage and ultimately pushing the annual goal boundary too. Last year, I set a modest mileage of 60 km / week. And by trying to stick with the program, I realized that I once again have to be even better at my time management skills - as if I haven't already done so. However, life happens and so do injuries along the way. So it goes along way to compromise my regular day-to-day priorities along with my running hobbies. At the end of it all, I managed to rack up approximately 2,800 km. Not bad but fell short of my personal goal of 3,000 km.

The realistic goal for this year would once again be 3,000 km. But I am raising the bar higher to 3,200 km. In other words, I am once again setting my weekly goal of 60 km plus an extra 5 for good measures if in the case of any minor setback.

I came across an interesting article from Runner's World, suggesting of the 6 training habits that lead to Boston qualifying times - according to Strava. I feel confident knowing that the tailoring for this year's training is mostly aligned to what the article states.

The Strava 40|80 Challenge hosted by Lululemon was also great motivation to kick start the frequent running habits to. By the end of the event, I managed to rack up roughly 82 km within 13 days. Hopefully my drive towards improvement continues on for the remainder of the year, and not limited to just being motivated by prizes and tangibles ??

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Have a great week everyone! - M.W.

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Week 31+32 / 52

8/13/2017

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Niagara Falls Marathon Training cont.

Been slacking a bit on the blogging side of things, especially during the dogs days of summer - sorry!

However, training has resumed three weeks ago and have been averaging around 68 km weekly for the past few weeks.
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Just like what I wrote the last blog entry , I have been roughly following through one of the Strava Premium training plans in preparation for my marquee fall race at Niagara Falls in October. One of the things I made flexible for myself is to not force runs on any particular given day and having the leverage to closely hit the weekly mileage target on a cumulative basis. This upcoming week, I will be entering week 4. And unlike previous training sessions, racking up such mileage doesn't feel as difficult from previous attempts. I do however have to constantly fight the mental side of things to get myself in tuned and getting outside for a run even though my mind doesn't feel like it.

The highlight of these past few runs is finding the controversial cow statue up in Cathedraltown, Markham. I just had to see the hype in person! But what amazes me is that I am now physically capable of running off to places that would've otherwise require a bike ride or a short drive.
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"Charity" at the Charity Crescent parkette in Cathedraltown, Markham, ON
I'll be back on the grind again for the next few weeks and update from there on!

​Cheers, - M.W.
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10/52

3/12/2017

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Week 10 Recap

Highlight of the week: From shorts weather to bundle from head-to-toe weather

This is the joy (or can also be the pains) of running in Canada! This week started off from a comfortable 11ºC to the bone chilling -12ºC before even factoring in the wind chill! Last week I mentioned how I got into the running groove by slightly lowering my clearance keeping an upward posture. This week was all about mental tune-ups. While logging miles and extracting data is important, it is even important to actually enjoy your run and position it as a weekly obligation. After all, it is indeed a personal choice and nobody forces us to do so! My end goal for this tune-up is essentially "rehearsals" for the actual race day in two weeks time. 

This week has also been a week of technical difficulties, namely the MyAsics app where it has helped substantially when it comes to gearing up for races.  Currently my mobile running app usages consist of the following:


Nike+ Run Club | Strava | TomTom Sports* | MyAsics | MapMyRun | Runkeeper
*Note: TomTom Sports is the native corresponding app to my HR GPS watch
Each of the apps named are uniquely motivating and can provide different individualized metrics that could be personally beneficial. In my opinion, the Nike NRC app is a great common ground to interact with your closest social media circle. The Strava app provides lots of athletic specific metrics as well as benchmarks set by amateurs and elite runners alike. My beef in this case is towards the MyAsics app. It has been quite effective when reasonably predicting my prospective race times within my past 2016 race year but their data synchronization falls way short from working as it should. Sync and manual importing from the MyAsics app is cumbersome. My real reason for using all these apps is to populate all available data and making the best judgement without giving in to the respective app's "pay to play" freemium tier. While every hobby can get costly with related equipments, I don't feel that paying for that extra locked data would realistically give me that edge to leap ahead. Plus, it further sentiments my ideas to learn from the social media and hashtags, hence the whole reason for this blog to log this entire journey of learning to run competitively with essentially nothing. Then again, things can change from there on and if I'm convinced enough to upgrade with those premium app tiers, I'll definitely share my thoughts from there too! 
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Cold AF...

What's NExt & Extras

This upcoming week will be the homestretch for the regular mileages before gradually tapering for the week after in anticipation of the Around the Bay 30K race. The "train smarter not harder" mantra will also be detrimental as there is going to be a nasty snowstorm system to start off the week.

I want to share a very helpful gym workout guide, originally shared recently by one of my avid runner buddy (Hi Sammie! ☺️), that seems to really enhance lower body movement and help compliment your existing running agility. It is called the David McHenry Dynamic Stretching Routine and some of the recommended stretches may already be something that you are already doing. If not (such as people like me...), it is slowly being integrated into my gym workouts that also consist of moderate weights. Sampler movements as shown!

Anywho, back on the grind- cheers! MW
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