Sometimes it's the little things or ones that matter the most.

My 11 year old daughter likes her old man, so I should count myself lucky, and she keeps wanting to run with me. I've signed her up for the MB Marathon Super Run (2.6 mile) that is sponsored through her school, we've done one together and she did last year alone while I ran the 1/2. The last race we did was "Run Through History" hosted by City Park Runners last fall. It was a 5km run and even though her old man had to pull off to the side of the road and pee into the Red River (classy) she jetted towards the finish line to take first place in her division. And so she's been bugging me ever since to run a 1/2 marathon...

Every Father's day in Winnipeg marks the annual Manitoba Marathon. Mackenzie called me up at school 3 weeks before and asked me if I can sign her up for the 10km race, she joined the cross country team at her school so she got in some mileage. I logged into the site and signed both of us up. We did a couple of practice runs and she joined me during one of my speed sessions. She commented to me after the practice with Coach Dan, Yves and Tracy how fast I could run (I can't believe it myself...), but more marveled at how fast the girl was. I told her it takes practice and consistency and to start small first before taking on long distances. I told her it took me almost 2 years to get comfortable to run 10km (6mi) and I don't want her to suddenly hate running because of the toll it can take on your body if you're not prepared.

So we find ourselves at the 10km start line of the Manitoba Marathon. It was a cloudy and cool day, which I told her makes it perfect for distance running. I told her going into the race, that there is no pressure, that I didn't want her to rush off the start line and to slowly build up. Mackenzie is in awe of the starting coral, how the mass of humanity is all crushed into a tiny space and how many people recognized me and were met with warm welcome. I told her this will start to happen as she gets older, how personality can truly go a long way.

And the 'gun' goes off and we're running.

The course took us through University Crescent over the Bishop Grandin on Pembina Hwy into Crescent Drive Park. And for the most part the run was pretty good, Mackenzie kept a pretty good pace and I could tell there were a lot of moments that she didn't want to quit because of me. She knew that 10km was a normal run for me and even though I stressed to her that there was absolutely no pressure, she really dug deep to keep herself moving forward. It was those moments where I just force her to slow down and walk for a couple of minutes, then I'd get her to pick a landmark on when she wants to start up again and I'd get her to start off slow and regain her pace. When we got to the 5km mark I told her that she matched her Run Through History time of 35mins which seemed to pick up her spirits.

As we were looping back over onto Pembina Hwy, I could tell she was delirious and exhausted. When we picked up the race kits the previous day, I got her to buy some GU gels and energy gummies for her run. I encouraged her to take water at the water stops and told her to pop 2-3 gummies. At the 5km mark I told her to take the GU with water. I would ask her how she was feeling at the water stops and she told me she couldn't believe how much she was sweating and how awfully hot she felt. She told me she wanted to take one of the sponges the aid stations were offering. I gave her that "What the Hell?" look as I found it to be very cool out, but she's young and probably just a metabolism machine so she grabbed a sponge and was dousing herself and I kept along side her smiling that shit eating grin that I got my little girl beside me.

At the 7km mark, she was dying...this is where she was having doubts. We were just looping back onto the Pembina overpass and she was telling me she couldn't believe how much her feet hurt. She was wearing the new New Balance Minimus shoes I bought her at CPR which are basically flat barefoot type shoes. I told her after this race we can pick up a new pair of shoes with cushioning if she wanted. She told me that she actually likes running in the minimals and she's used to them but she's just tired and wasn't used to this distance. I told her that all the pain she's feeling will disappear when she sees the finish line. Now it was her turn to give me that WTF? look.

At 8km we were back onto University Drive and she told me she was feeling very hungry. We got up at 5am that morning, I made her Maple and Brown sugar oatmeal and some juice for breakfast. Plus I got her to eat the gummies and take the GU, she probably burned a ton of calories just willing herself this far and I kept talking and encouraging her to keep moving forward, she was in pain and as much as I hated seeing her like this, I told her that we would walk for a minute but no matter how much pain you're feeling, bottle it up inside and put it away. And when you cross that finish line, everything that you've done today will be so worth it. Plus we'd go for a huge pancake breakfast!

As you get to the 26mile chute that will take you to the old University track field and finish line, Mackenzie was just dying. She was telling me how much she hated this and that she wanted to quit. I told her it was just around the corner when we get into the chute and then the finish line. She kept telling me that she was hurting, especially her feet and she couldn't believe how much she was sweating, she was almost in tears. This was the only time I got all "Strict Asian Father" on her. I told her there was NO WAY she was quitting. I told her to stop for one moment and turn around and look back...I told her that she ran 10kms...6 miles in the rain with me, you ran for over an hour and covered a lot of ground. There is only a little more left...whatever pain you're feeling Mackenzie, leave it all on the ground that you covered today....just put one foot in front of the other and go forward.

She did just that...as we turned onto the track, I told her the finish line is right THERE! She just bolted....damn, she ran like a demon possessed and I ran right behind her telling her to go go go go...1:14:54 later she made it, with me right behind her.

Next up for us is Color Me Rad. Happy Father's day indeed.

Next up on the horizon

The City Park Runners Marathon and Half-Marathon training clinic came to a close this past week. And for this spring season, I've run 2 half marathons and 1 full, and I feel I did pretty decent time-wise, even the bad moments were positive, in that I was able to learn a great deal from the failures as much as the successes. There's a lot of work still to do in order for me to get to where I want to go, but with this year's past clinic I got in a great base and foundation for my next target race, and that's the Twin Cities Marathon on October 5th, 2014.

I wrote out a new marathon training cycle plan and I spoke with coach Dan and Erick about it and  got a lot of positive feedback in the layout with plenty of suggestions and tweaks. It's a living document that will be modified but the one thing I learned this year...and that was from fellow CPR group runners Paul and Dr. Phil, was consistency is the key. To be consistent with everything and stay healthy is where I'll see the big jumps in performance. Asides from my Garmin GPS watch, I've taken to writing out my training in a journal to help me track my progress in a more organic way.

Recovery is also an important aspect in training and I've learned to listen to my body a lot more. So I'm taking a full week off before I start my new training cycle as I realized I was over training after doing a tempo-paced run early in the week and the next day both my achilles and hips were painfully sore. I spoke with Osty about this and he determined that I have been running too much the past month as I pretty much ran 3-half marathons in one week (WPS 1/2 and Fargo Full) and then took 1 week off and basically picked up from where I left off running the CPR clinic and doing the Thursday and Saturday group runs at quicker than normal paces as I 'felt' good but I wasn't really letting my body rest and it all caught up to me just this past week. Hence the self-imposed break...

Take a break!

This summer, with my base intact, I'll be working on hills and trails along with track work for my speed training and longer LSD runs as I want to get acclimatized to running 2+ hours with marathon pacing in between the middle miles of the LSD and the slow coming in the beginning and the end. Tempo runs will be a little longer too as the normal tempo distances CPR does on Thursdays are 10k, I'll be going 12-15k. Erick is not into the junk miles and quite frankly I don't like running too much for the sake of running so this summer a lot of my focus will be running with specificity in mind to boost my aerobic engine and train with paces that will bring me closer to that sub 4 hour marathon time. I'll also key in on a nutrition plan as I find it easier to eat healthier during the summer months and also learn the fine art of nutrition intake during LSDs as I want to get my body used to taking energy gels so I can go the longer distances. I've got a couple of key practice races pegged this summer that will test my fitness so I should have some indicators where I'm headed and what I need to tweak along the way.

Four months of preparation for one race...sounds about right.

Mileage since January
670.04 km / 416 miles