My monitor is rattling

So it was yesterday. As we sat quietly typing in our office with the hum of the fluorescent lighting and A/C fans in the background on the 2nd floor of our 4 story office building, someone noticed that we seemed to be 'moving'. Kind of rolling a bit up, down, lateral...very minor but noticable.

We get tremors here, on rare occasions. You usually have to be really observant to pick them up. Maybe you'll move a bit, maybe a hanging light will slightly sway or you'll hear a rattle of something loose. This ain't the San Andreas fault we're on but this seemingly solid Earth we sit on isn't so solid. Stuff moves. Ground can push up at fault lines and create mountains (over really long periods of time, mind you!). In our case, it's a remanant of massive glaciers that sat over Ontario and Quebec 10,000 years ago. The weight pushed the ground downwards and after they've long since thawed and flowed away, it's been slowly rebounding ever since.

Yesterday's 5.0 quake was centered near the Quebec border, remarkably close to this 4.0 tremor from Feb. 24, 2006. I'm guessing that particular area had a pretty big pack of ice on it.

Apparently quakes and tremors in this area spread out over very long distances in their affected regions, probably something to do with the lack of distinctive fault lines that absorb a lot of the motion. This one was felt well down the eastern seaboard of the States, although almost not at all east of the epicenter. There is one large fault line that runs N/S in central Quebec that probably contributed to it's lack of effect to the east.

As the rolling sustained, gently, for several seconds, it quickly elevated to some pretty distinctive shaking, as my monitor, pictures and other items on my desk began shacking about, enough that I thought my monitor would topple over. This prompted a spontaneous evacuation of the building by it's residents and the same from most of the other nearby buildings as people quickly flooded the parking lots and sidewalks. I stayed back and checked USGS to see what was up and got a quick posting in on chrunners even as the shaking was happening, whiched recorded my post at 1:43:57, approximately 2 minutes after the epicenter event (about right for wave propogation effects outward from the source).

Pretty neat stuff. There's something fascinating about knowing the Earth isn't just a solid ball floating around in space.

5 peaks race 2

Race #2 of 5 Peaks Southern Ontario series is completed. Improved a little bit and was more than a minute quicker than the last time I did this event although the course may be a bit different than in '08. 36th overall but 4th in my age group which kept me off the podium.

36 JAMES RODGERS TORONTO 5152 1:03:59.4 5:13 M50-59 4/24 32/153

I have to be careful of where I start. I was hung up in traffic for most of the race. When I ran this event 2 years ago I had plenty of free air. I don't think I could have gained enough to make the placement but it would have been close, I was less than a minute back of 3rd place. I was stronger on the hills this than I was in Dundas, passing people instead of being passed, and still had the stride length to beat them on the downhills. On this Durham forest course you're spending a lot of time on hills so it's either run em or fade back. The down hills require some attention to footing though not as bad as Rattlesnake Point will be.

Right back at it though, 11ish miles today but at a recovery pace. Up bright and early tomorrow and I want at least a full hour in the mornings augmented by my noon time runs when I can get them in. A little more quality over these weeks as well, I need to push the tempo runs to a harder pace. We'll see what I can put together for the next 4 weeks.

Yet another 3 day a week training program

Came across this Toronto based blog called Stellar Runners. They tout the virtues of training according to the plans of the Furman Institutes First Training program. The First program has gained a lot of popularity (or notariety if you wish) with it's 3 days of running and 3 days of cross training style of marathon training. I'm not a fan of it. Some who have tried it had some success, others not so much. Many end up changing it to eliminate the cross training days, often substituting easy runs...this basically makes it pretty well the same as any other training program a-la Higdon or one of the RW plans. The cross training needs to be pretty intense for it to work and the run days are all hard days (tempo, intervals, long) so no real break in the program. I prefer easy runs, doing one quality day a week (hills or intervals depending), one tempo and my long, do a mid long (great for practicing marathon pace) and lots of easy stuff.

Anyway, the blog stumbled on another flavour of 3 day a week plans, this one called the PRO System, which is somehow related to this site called Marathon Nation. It seems this one differs in their use of pace prediction tables from one's 5k times, which they seem to believe reveals your best training strategies. Doesn't really sound like anything McMillan's Pace Calculator couldn't reveal but maybe there's something magical about their implementation that makes it all come together. or not.

It's some mix of threshold pacing for tempos and intervals (nothing new there) and what looks a little like MP and threshold based progression runs for long runs. Personally all I see is a lot of fast running that'll make you hate every workout. And it's all unnecessary.

Marathon training is easy, there's no secret to it. Get out 5-6 days a week, 3 of them nice and easy, keep your long runs easy but don't hesitate to add a little MP paced stuff during them (avoid that in the very long runs though), get a good solid mid week mid long that you can run pretty close to MP pace on. Do a tempo run as well, you can consider alternating the tempo run with intervals or hills on alternate weeks if you wish. The longs are every 2 weeks with mid longs an the in-between weeks, and a classic 3 weeks taper. Always go by feel, know what easy is and don't kid yourself on it, running too hard is counterproductive.

The other really important thing...don't confuse marathon training with proper conditioning training. Marathon training is designed to get you through a marathon, it is not designed to make you a faster overall runner. Another thing to remember, if you do take on marathon training, build a really good solid base by running lots of easy miles before you start formal training. If you're taking on a 50 or 55 mpw plan, don't hesitate to be doing at least that much for a few months before you start. Building a good solid base gives you lots to feed off during training and can make the task so much easier to manage. The miles will toughen you up and you'll be less likely to get injured when you start increasing those long runs. Plus you'll be able to recover faster.