2015 Races

The summer race season is just around the corner and much work has been done to get to this point. It does, however, never seem like I have not done enough - I always feel like I should have put a few extra long runs in or got a few more strength sessions at the gym to build power. Alas, it is here. I just finished my 2015 Island Race series cap during the Merville 15k on April 12th. I had a wonderful set of races except for one complete "BLOW UP" at the Comox Valley Half which had dropped my points just below the overall series win. It is a bit of a burn but it is what keeps me coming back for more and motivated to get better. I feel that I bounced back fairly quickly and was able to come out the end of the series at the same or better fitness level than last year. I will be at ready for the rest of the summer events, in the following order: (if you see something that is cool, send it my way!)

Apr. 25th - Tsolum River Race (Cycling) 60 or 80km race around the country roads of Merville.
Apr. 26th - Snow to Surf (9 Stage relay race from Mt. Washingtin through Comox Lake to paddling across the Comox Bay. My team is the "Thor's Hammer'd" and we hope to put some work on the old guard in town.
May 3rd - Nanimo XC race (Mtn Biking) Mid-island cross country.
May 10th - 6 hrs of Maple (Mtn Biking) A endurance feast! In Duncan and along the amazing trails.
May 24th Tri -K (Triathlon) Comox Valley fun race starting at the Sports Centre Pool and finishing on the track.
May 24th 12hrs of Cumberland Marathon (Mtn Biking) - In teams of 4, 2 or solo. A festival of fun.
May 31st - XC Championships Campbell River (Mtn Biking) - The finals in the Snowden trail network.
June 14th - Country Roads Marathon (Comox Valley 1/2 and full Marathon) A revisit of an old race right here in the beautiful Comox Valley.

July 5th - XTERRA Victoria - (Off-road Triathlon) The classic and my "A" Race.

Sept. 26th - MOMAR (Adventure Race) Kayaking, orienteering, mtn biking, running etc. A day of fun!

Follow along on Strava:

Call my office Fit Chiropractic and Sport Therapy at 250.871.3674 or email derek@drvinge.com

2015 Early Race Season

The 2015 edition of the Island Race Series us underway and some friendly and fierce competition has been seen. I truly enjoy getting out and seeing familiar faces and meeting new people at each race. The Comox Valley Road Runners have represented well. We are currently in 2nd place standings as a club on the Island.

Vancouver Half Marathon - Photo Pacific Road Runners

My next running races are:

Bazan Bay 5km March 8th
Comox Valley RV Half Marathon March 22nd
Merville River Runners 15km - April 5th
Series Finale Sooke River 10km - April 18th

Also, upcoming is the Island Cup mountain bike races!

Fit Chiropractic is Moving.

Long Steady Distance

LSD - The term that I have used for years with tongue-in-cheek approach to base training. You know, the psychedelic drug well known for its psychological effect on spiritual experiences and altered sense of time.  It is a way, maybe, to create excitement about going for an extended length run at a slow pace.

In a sense, it is a relief to just go out and not worry about pace or lap times. No need to push the limit each interval faster than the last. No split times because there are no intervals! Often, the destination is the focal point - finish an entire trail network, loop around a lake, or summit a mountain.

I was encouraged by getting out with a few friends for an entire day jogging around the backcountry and reaching the summit of no less than three peaks; Mt. Castlecrag, Mt. Frink, and Mt. Albert Edward. The last of which has been a goal for a handful of years. Luckily the temperature was low and below freezing so the snow that had fallen weeks prior was now frozen solid but yet had some good grip. A good eight hours of steady running. It was getting close to that psychedelic LSD I was speaking of earlier.

For the next few months the long steady distance runs (not LSD!) are still going to persist in my training plan - not only because they are important for long term adaptation but because I truly enjoy them! The next step is starting to get intensity ramped up without over doing it OR getting injured. I have been shown a new tool in guiding my training to get to the next level. WHAT IS THE PROPER RECOVERY TIME?
More on this soon... Hint: heart rate variability.

The 2015 Race Calendar:

Jan. 8 - Saanichton 8km #1 Island Race Series/BC Champs/Timex Series
Jan. 25 - Cobble Hill 10km
Feb. 8 - Cedar 12km?
Feb. 15 - First Half - Vancouver 1/2 marathon
Feb. 22 - Hatley 8km?
Mar. 8 - Bazan Bay 8km
Mar. 22 - Comox Valley Half Marathon
Apr. 12 - Merville 15km
Jun. 14 - Country Roads Half Marathon - Comox Valley Marathon
etc.

Summer Racing Recap and Next Step

The season of competition came and went. Everything Almost everything went down as planned! I qualified for XTERRA worlds by winning the Victoria event (other than Elite Olympian Brent McMahon finishing ahead). I placed third in the Apple Triathlon in Kelowna, to end up 2nd at BC Provincials and qualify for the 2015 World Olympic triathlon championships in Chicago.

On the other side of things... I missed the start for a big race in Victoria, the same race as the new Victoria 1/2 IRONMAN event. Somehow through the craziness that is pre-race registration, I was distracted enough that I thought I was in the 8am start for the SPRINT triathlon.  I was actually in the OLYMPIC event that started 45 minutes earlier. After much discussion with race organizers to try and convince them to switch my category to the sprint event, I jumped on course and finished the bike and run component. I now consider it a very expensive training session never to be repeated again.

After the BC Olympic Triathlon Provincials in August, I took a much needed two week break from serious training. We got a new puppy, a golden doodle named Penny, and I spent time with family tooling around the amazing location that is the Comox Valley!

This two week break has turned into an enjoyable month and a half of just doing things I feel like. There was a cyclocross race here, an adventure race (MOMAR) there. Now, I think I'm ready to get back to some consistent training with semi-routine. I hope to build a good season of base training with putting in some miles running and cycling with a couple sessions working on overall strength, including Core strength.

I have joined the Comox Valley Rowing Club - another excellent club that rows on the river/estuary of the puntledge and Comox Bay. Also, the CV Cycle Club is a very passionate group of riders that I'm happy to be a part of.  With the changing of the seasons, soon the snow is going to fly in the alpine and the nordic skiing trails will open. I would like to get out a few days a week this year and work on nordic technique!  Now I just need to get the perfect balance of performance and recreation. Maybe this is a new genre of training: Recreational Performance.   I always like a partner in these activities, so please get in touch if you want to join me.

Follow along on Strava:

Call my office Fit Chiropractic and Sport Therapy at 250.871.3674 or email derek@drvinge.com

Turning the Page

The training that was completed over the winter is now paying off. I finally was able to break through some of my previous barriers that I had set over the past year. I came off four months of virtually no training when I travelled around Australia and NZ last fall to building up volume & intensities through the winter. I used some new testing protocols to guide my training bimonthly with MOXY Oxygen Monitors. This testing both helped me take the proper recovery but also implemented more specific intensities to perform with peak running efficiency.

New Science of Running

An new book was delivered this week hot of the press this month. Steve Magness brings together a pile of current research (that rocks the old theory on performance testing) in a readable format. It has two parts; the first is the science behind the radical new training programs and secondly it puts forth a suggested plan for your specific event.
I like that the book because it teaches us to get away from relying on lactate threshold levels and VO2Max testing to design a training program. For years I completed lactate testing throughout the training macro-cycle with little actual correlation to my current training and athletes that did exactly the same training would have different levels. It turns out that lactate is used as a fuel source at higher intensities. Why would we want to limit the production of this essential energy molecule? I now do workouts to train my body to efficiently transport lactate into and out of the cell, so it can be effectively used to produce energy.
The biggest part of my training this spring has been to really emphasise proper recovery sessions. I have always liked to do multi-sport days back to back with no recovery. During the winter building phase of training I think this is fine and keeps my mind motivated but as I hone into peak performance for task-specific training I need to prevent the overtraining effect it has on my body. It is actually very odd for me to take a day or two off training... at least doing something!  But, I feel much stronger because of it.

Next up is the Shawnigan Lake Sprint Triathlon May, 25th - a qualifier for the 2015 World Sprint Championships in Chicago. After that is an Olympic Distance triathlon in Victoria on June 15th, and the Xterra Off-road triathlon in Victoria on July 6th.

Fit Chiropractic.

Marching Forward!

Things have come together for the past few weeks. I have implemented a completely new training regime with the help of my coach/mentor Matt. We re-focused my efforts away from short quick runs for efficiency sake and brought back the long-steady-distance plan. And, you know what, it is working!
 I have been trying to get the most out of my limited schedule for years. As much as I want to, I don't have an unlimited amount of time to dedicate to training and performance. For the past three months I have spent some attention to be able to determine my limiting factors (in performance) and then find ways to fix them.

This is where my time spent with MOXY monitor has come in. It is a new sports-science tool to investigate what is the limiting factor in delivering oxygen to the muscles. It is a technique that has been used for a decade in the hospital but only recently has it been made small enough and mobile application for testing performance.
Through this testing I have found two things (so far) that were very important for improving my baseline. My long steady distance training was not long or steady enough! I needed to slow my pace down to a level where physiologic adaptive changes could be made (increase capillary density in muscle, increase levels of mitochondria, vaso-dilation of peripheral arterioles, etc.). Second of all, I had an oxygen delivery problem. I was not getting enough oxygen to my muscles from a limit in my respiratory system or the cardiovascular system.  Through MOXY testing we determined that I needed to work on my strength and endurance the respiratory system.
I have now been using the SpiroTiger system for six weeks. I have noticed a dramatic change in my daily respiratory rate, not to mention when I'm at red-lining!  The system is fairly straight forward: the diaphragm and accessory breathing muscles can be trained exactly the same way we train the rest of our body for performance. It is like a dumbell for our lungs or maybe more like a treadmill. It uses a computer to monitor and modify breathing frequency and a silicon bag attached to a tubing system that directs CO2 out and O2 in.

It is amazing how hard this workout is. I consider it a workout because within 3-5minutes of using it, I will break out in a heavy sweat and it takes all my focus to keep at full effort. The computer on the SpiroTiger warns if you are hypoventilating and going to pass out and it will also sound an alarm when you are breathing too deep (hyperventilating).

In my experience (along with all the research) I have noticed an ability to hold higher intensities for a longer period of time.  The muscles between my ribs and my diaphragm actually get a bit sore after a hard SprioTiger workout! For someone else to use the same set-up all they need is a user-set of tubes and a silicon balloon, the computer can be shared with a few people.  If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Testing

Time to test my training from the past eight weeks. I have been somewhat scattered in my focus for getting periodized training organized. But, it is what it is and I have to move forward from here.  As I utilize in my clinic, objective data is essential to moving forward.  I have found some new software that is important for monitoring progress, mapmyrun.com.

Using google maps I scoped out a flat-ish road near my house to be able to pace through a 5km time trial. It turned out to be somewhat rolling and an overall downhill drop of 33ft but I'm ok with that! I was aiming to be somewhere between 3:15-3:25/km and I was right near the middle.

View this Course on MapMyRun

This is the first testing situation in over five months. I really wanted to give myself a break this fall and let the years of very hard training on my body recover completely. In hindsight, I think half a year may have been a bit much, included with an indulgent lifestyle while travelling abroad. But, nevertheless, I have been working hard for the past 6-8 weeks on getting fit. I'm not sure when the next race will be, possibly one of the upcoming Island race series.

Dry-land Training

Where is all the snow!? I rode my bike by the Alpine Resort sign today (in shorts) on a beautiful bluebird day. There doesn't seem to be any precipitation not to mention freezing conditions to promote fluffy white stuff falling from the sky.  With these unseasonably dry conditions I have decided to try and make the best of it and get out on my bike, hit the gym, and put in some serious running sessions on the track.

Vanier Track with the Glacier in the background!

Before moving to the Comox Valley, I have somewhat avoided the track.  I spent a few years slogging it out on the track at UBC. Actually, the University didn't even have a real track and we used the one that was in Richmond. The Minoru Athletic Centre catered to us but we had to bus out there every T, TH, and S for the majority of the year. Well, now I have come full circle and once again I see the benefits of calculated pacing. Coincidentally, just this spring, the Vanier track was re-surfaced to become a nice flat and fast rubberized tarmac.  No lines are painted yet but I just stick to the inside lane anyway. Luckily I have a few friends that keep me honest by putting in solid work at the track weekly (sometimes daily).

Vince working on his quad strength

Les showing us how 8x800m should be done (fast)

The Comox Valley!

 We are here! My wife, Amber, and I are starting to feel settled after moving into the Comox Valley. We are very excited to be here and getting to know the layout, the activities, and most importantly the people. We spent many weekends driving up here from our previous home of Victoria and were tired of the long travel days. We both asked ourselves "why not just move there!" So we did.

I have joined the Comox Valley Road Runners Club. A fun run club that organizes and supports many events in the Valley. I'm happy to be part of a run club as it has been a few years since the last running club I have been a part of.  I already have a good group of serious runners that want to go for a run anywhere on a moments notice. This includes beautiful trail jogs or long road slogs or even a rip on the shiny new track.  I will even get some club gear to run the 2014 Island race series and represent.   So far the running training has gone excellently, but I have only been back for a month with semi-consistent training. Hopefully I can keep building the volume with some intensity leading into the spring racing.

I'm very excited to join the local Strathcona Nordic Ski Club. I have never been part of a cross country skiing club but feel that this could be the place for new athletic challenges and experiences. I've been told this is the largest Nordic Club in Canada!  They have the Nordic trails around Raven Lodge at Mt. Washington Ski Resort just 20minutes from downtown Courtenay.

I hope to get out and hit the mountian bike trails in Cumberland along with downhill skiing and Mt. Washington. There are so many outdoor active things to do in the valley. I'm very excited to be a part of!  And, my new chiropractic clinic is in "The Hub" on 4th Street in downtown Courtenay.

I'm BACK!

After a four month holiday with my wonderful wife Amber I'm back to training.
I spent some time travelling to Lithuania with the Jr. National Rowing team as their chiropractor before taking a three month vacation (sabbatical?) to Haida Gwaii, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. We have many good stories and adventures from our travels but ultimately we are very happy to be back to Canada and to our new home in the Comox Valley!

What sport to do? Running, rowing, or riding my bike. Or is it xc skiing, crossfit, or xterra?
Maybe them all. Send me a message if you want to join!

Summer Success!

The Summer Events have come and gone! What a ride.

I have decided that I really like fierce competition and the whole process of reaching a level of fitness where I am competitive. I enjoy training and pushing myself every day. I like how good I feel after a long workout session. 

This year, after competing in a handful of road-running races, some trail runs, a cross-fit competition, a sprint and olympic distance triathlon, I finally felt I was ready for the Xterra Victoria race on July 14th, 2013. The official Victoria Xterra results are not correct, run times are incomplete. But, here is the important part:

The Xterra World championships are in Hawaii on Oct. 27, 2013.

I need to thank my training partner Clay for all the focus and motivation for the practice sessions, recon missions, and competitions through the spring and summer.  He kept me coming back and helping me regaining focus after I wanted to look into a multitude of other distracting things.  

 

 

I'm going to take a break from fierce competition. I will be travelling to Europe with Rowing Canada to be the team medical therapist for the Junior World Championships from July, 29th - Aug. 12th, 2013. I'm excited for the trip and a break from training and racing!

My wife and I are moving to the Comox Valley. A small paradise on Vancouver Island, close the Huge alpine mountains and glaciers alongside the ocean and wild outdoors. I will be there starting work the first week of November, 2013.  Read more here. 

Summer

I have now come to a point where I need to outline a rough schedule of what I'm doing this summer.  So, this is the hypothetical plan of the bigger races:


May 26 - Shawnigan Lake Triathlon (sprint) results
June 1 - Q's Run Series: 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m Centennial Track results
June 2 - Bastion Square Bike Race (crit) (scratch)
June 16 - Elk Lake Victoria Triathlon Subaru (Olympic distance)
June 23 - Whistler 25km Trail race "Comfortably Numb"
July 7 - Gutbuster Ladysmith
July 14 - XTERRA Victoria  Off-road Triathlon! *My Priority - Worlds Qualifier!
Aug. 11 - Gutbuster Mt. Washington!

If you know of any others... I would love to find out. Please message me (derek@drvinge.com)

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Note: If you need any help with injuries please stop by my Sport Med Clinic (www.drvinge.com)

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Follow along with the Training:

Tweets by @DaVinge_

Island Race Series: Sooke 10km

The final race in the 2013 Island Race Series is the Sooke 10km. Put on by the S.T.A.R.R. Sooke Trail and Road Runners, and an excellent club.  I spend some evenings training with this club when I worked in Sooke a few years back. I really enjoyed it the time with the close community of runners.
This race starts from the local High School and winds it's way up and around the Sooke River Rd. to close to the Sooke potholes. It is quite hilly and there never seems to be a flat spot on the race. It is a truly beautiful place to run. You can hear the river in stretches while running through large fir trees and ferns that surround the road as it cuts through the temperate rain forest.

  For me, the first 2-3km were fast, I tried to push the pace to see what I had in me. But, in fact, I was flat. I had no spark and I just held on for the rest of the race the level that I could hold steady. Time to re-group and get ready for the rest of the summer.  It was a nice finish to the race series!

Up next; I'm just putting my summer calendar together. More to follow soon.

Big Boy

It is time to let the big bike go. I'm more into cross-country and this bike hasn't been ridden in months.

2008 All-mountain full suspension bike, great for all types of trails. Size Large. 6" front suspension Marzocchi Bombers, 6" rear suspension with handlebar mounted lock-out. Full avid juicy disc breaks. $2799 New! Great shape and ready to rip. 

http://victoria.en.craigslist.ca/bik/3755455242.html

Island Race Series: Merville 15km

The second from last race in the Island Race Series is the Merville 15k. A small hamlet just north of Courtenay is country roads and small rolling hills. It has one general store which is also the gas station post office and grocery store.

I enjoyed this race!  This race is hosted by the "River Runners" from Campbell River, another 20min up the road. Well organized and delicious food at the finish.  The course wraps around a large rectangular piece of forest and ends just past the Start.

Merville 15k Map and Elevation - the pointer is on the highest elevation point

I felt like the pace needed to be pushed in the first few km as nobody was making the leap. It was right after an athlete said "It feels like a training run" that something clicked in my head that I should push the pace. So, I jumped out in front and lead the race for the first 7km.  It was at the start of the big long hill that Nick passed me and it stayed that way until the finish. I felt alright, but probably went out a bit to hard at the beginning trying to crack the psyche of the group.  Mark Cryderman of Campbell River was catching me though the race, but in the last 3km I just put everything into the final push and it payed off. Race results here. 

Next and final race of the Island Race Series: Sooke 10km. 

Trail Running with Injinji toe socks

A very inspiring video by my friend Darcy of Canada's top Ultramarathoner Adam Campbell.  All shot in the trails around Squamish, BC. I use the toe socks and they make me blister free.

Core Strength Class

At the same location as my LifeMark Sport Medicine Clinic - A 30min core strength class on Wednesdays April to June. FREE!

Check www.drvinge.com for more info

Island Race Series: Comox Valley Half Marathon

Yes! A half marathon this early in the season... perfect timing to test out endurance at race-pace over the long distance. The race put on by the legendary Comox Valley Road Runners. They always have a huge collection of athletes and many in the top rankings of the race.  The race went off without a hitch and many volunteers were out at every corner cheering and supporting the runners. I found that there was an exceptional amount of loud shouts at the 15km mark, perfect to get amped for the final push.

Read a good article here about the race. The temperatures were a bit low, in the 5 C range, and made it challenging to warm up before the race. But, with no frost bite or other serious problems everyone had a successful race.
I encountered a serious psychological brick wall about 3km from the finish. I had hammered it and pushed the pace from the 10km mark up until that point and then I slowly fizzled out. I had put in the work to get a finish time I'm happy with, but that leaves more to be desired for the next half-marathon.

Next up, Merville 15km.

Island Race Series: Bazan Bay

A blistering pace with a crowd of nationally ranked athletes, this race turned out to be a drag race! As you can see in the image below it looked exactly like this from the start!

Oh, wait, sorry that is not at all what it looked like. Not sure where that came from...ahem. But, this is image below is from first 100m into the race.

Well, Ok, that is not it either. But, that is what it felt like how fast we were going. It is a bit of a mix between the top and the bottom picture and you get an idea of how the race went.   I was still feeling a bit sore from the low-back injury I sustained two weeks before. But, I wanted to see how fast I could go. While waiting for the starting gun to go off, I was able to see all the top athletes who have located themselves in the Victoria and Vancouver area. The entire National triathlon training centre was participating, along with former national level runners, age group record holders and a few serious off-the-couch competitive athletes.

The course is flat and fast, not really any hills to speak of except a gradual decline-incline at the 2.5km turn around point.  It was lightning fast from the get go and after tale of the tape nine runners finished under 15min! I was in the top 25 and very happy to be there. I had a great race and enjoyed myself immensely! A new PR.  See results from 2013 here.

Next race, Comox Valley Half marathon!

Island Race Series: Hatley Castle 8km

The race is put on by FrontRunners, a local Victoria running store. They have a great system set up and RaceDay Timing Services have organized the chip timing in the race.  The combination of both companies organizing the race keeps the most fluid and efficient coordination. I enjoy when both these companies come together.

The Hatley Castle is a legendary location for a race, not to mention a National historic site and  BC heritage building. The Castle was commissioned by the Dunsmuir family in 1908, James Dunsmuir was one-time BC Premier and also BC lieutenant governor, in addition to being a wealthy coal industrialist. The castle was purchased from the family in 1939 and has been a military college and now, starting in 1995, as Royal Roads University. A truly beautiful campus in a castle, ocean front and surrounded by huge Douglas fir trees and a temperate rainforest.

  The Hatley Castle 8km race has by far the most hills of the Island race series. I don't know the overall elevation change, but as you can see below, it has significant hills (for a road-race) from sea-level to the top of the ridge.  My plan was to pace easy into the first 5km which was well into the top of the biggest hills and then rip the last 3km.  It worked out for the most part, but it is hard to reign it in when runners are passing on the uphill!
If you see in the map below it is somewhat like a large rectangle, but in actual fact it seems nothing like it.  I found the last 2km on the double track trails very relaxing and like a mountain path.  I ended up fighting for 2nd place at the end but first place (Geoff Martinson) was more than 90 seconds out in front. A great race!