Sharman Ultra - New Ventures

For the 0.01% of you who read my blog meticulously, you may have noticed a 'coaching' tab appear on the top bar a few days ago.  That was indeed not an error and I am delighted to announce that I will now be offering my coaching services as I work along side Ian Sharman for Sharman Ultra.

Please check out Sharman Ultra here and Ian's announcement of me joining the team here.

I'm very excited to spread my knowledge and experience, and help fellow ultra runners achieve their running and racing goals!

Ian and I at American River 50 mile finish line, April 2011.

Thank yous, Photos and Race Memories

Comrades.  Wow, that was one tough race and a big battle but a battle I'm so happy to have fought.  It was an ugly win, but one I am so happy to have achieved :)

You may have already read my race report over on iRunFar which goes into how the race played out but I wanted to post some thank yous, some photos and some random race memories here:

The Thank Yous

• Nedbank for including me at part of the Green Dream Team.  It was my 4th time racing for them and a great experience as always.  Personal thanks to Nick, Adriaan, Patrick and all the race day 'seconds' (crew).
• My wonderful sponsors who support my running all year long, through the tough training and the racing highlights: Montrail, Mountain Hardwear, Clif, Flora, Drymax, CEP Compression Canada, Nuun Hydration and Petzl.
• The Medical Crew: Chris Napier at Restore Physiotherpy, Dr. Jim Bovard, and Bobby Crudo RMT.
• Ian Sharman for his coaching tips over the last few months, I'm pretty stubborn but I'm very glad I listened and trusted Ian!
• My 'people' - my mum, dad, sister, brother-in-law and niece.  For their cheering, support and for a relaxing catch up post-race.
• My friends, including Mikey P, Ran, Jackie, Susan, Ryne & Kristin.  I might not have seen you all much in the last few months but you were always there when I needed you!

The Random Race Memories

Ok, race reports are nice but there is not always room for the anecdotes that make up the day, so here are a few random memories :)

• Pre-race I wondered where Kerry Koen, a South African runner was at this years Comrades as I'd enjoyed meeting her in previous years.  She then appeared at the sidelines mid-race just when I needed a friendly face and some moral support!

• Nothing beats watching the sunrise over African farmland an hour or so into Comrades. 

• As I stood right at the front of the runners on the startline, pinching myself to believe I'd actually made it, relatively, uninjured to that spot.

• When I didn't need all the Clif electrolyte drink in my bottles I poured it over my head, I just hoped I wouldn't become a sugar trap for insects!

• Seeing Frank Stebner of Vancouver for a hug at the startline and then he was one of the first people I saw at the finish line.  A little bit of home, half a world away.

• When the wheels felt like they were falling off oh so early in the race, wondering if I'd be tough enough to death march 50kms.

• Amy Sproston showing up pre-race with green nails to match the Nedbank kit, we all then copycatted her; ultrarunning is all about looking good afterall!

• My physio appointment with Chris the day I flew out to South Africa, I think the advice for the mental approach was just as important as the actual physio treatment.

• At 30kms 'to go' thinking that it was way too early to be counting the km markers one by one.  At 21km, trying to convince myself that I had 'just' a half marathon to go.

• Patrick of Nedbank telling me that I was too far back of 1st and 2nd to catch them, but that 4th was too far back to catch me.  Well, I always say a race is not done until the finish line ...

• Going through Pinetown at about 12km to, two female marshals cheered me with an insane amount of enthusiasm and it definitely powered me up that hill. 

• Seeing the timing car and the Nurgalieva twins ahead of me for the first time at less than 5km 'to go'.  Even then I wasn't really thinking about winning, I was just thinking about running as fast as I could.

• Ian Sharman passing me when I was a walking mess with about 20km to go, and then passing Ian back with about 800m to go - I knew he wouldn't be expecting that :)   It was great to have such a friend among a field of 16, 000 runners be next over the finish line behind me (note, Ian was 'jogging' a sub 6h30 time for a training race).

• Seeing two Union Jacks along the course and a huge Maple Leaf at the sidelines in the finishing stadium.

• Spending time in the VIP area at the finish and meeting so many Comrades legends.  I was in awe, especially when I then spoke to Bruce Fordyce on Nick's phone.  Bruce told me in 2013 that I could win Comrades, I decided he knew what he was talking about and I decided to believe him :)

• Hearing Amy Sproston's story of how her injury flared up at 23km to go so she walked the remaining distance to the finish line and had two beers en route.  I am sure Amy is disappointed but she showed true Comrades class and earned her finishers medal.

• Having to walk down stairs backwards to get to the press conference.  It' been a long time since I've been in that much pain, and it never felt so good!

• At the press conference reminding Norrie Williamson (Scottish/ South African Coach/ Comrades expert) that he had asked me when I first met him in 2011 how I was going to win Comrades with such a slow marathon PB ;)

The Photos

Start line in Pietermaritzburg

Finish line :)

With Nick Bester, Caroline Wostmann and Bongmussa Mthembu (mens winner)

With Camille, Frida, Sophia and Amy

With Bruce Fordyce, 9 times winner

With Nick Bester, former winner and Nedbank team manager

With Jonas Buud, consistent gold medalist and top master (7th overall)

BMO Vancouver Marathon

BMO Vancouver marathon is an event of mixed experiences for me; 2008 - my first sub-3 (yay!), 2009 - my first DNF (boo!), 2012 - 2:42 for the win and a PB (yay!), 2013 - another DNF (boo!), and then this year - just a nice solid jaunt around the course with lots of friends and team mates both running and cheering.  With Comrades 89km just 28 days away the aim of yesterdays race was not to race too hard, but to get a solid effort in all the same.  I still need to get some solid training in this week for Comrades so if I raced too hard then the recovery time for the marathon would eat into the training time for my A race - not a good idea.    I am more than happy with my 2nd place, 2:43:04 finish time yesterday, mostly for the fact that I felt great at the finish and feel great today so I know that I can still train well this week.

A training race like yesterday also has added benefits of working out a few race day details for Comrades.  I am now set on the shoe and sock combination that I'll sport on June 1st in South Africa, I got good practice at grabbing bottles from a the table and remembering to look out for elite stations on a race course, and I had the added benefit of running the first approx 23km with Wayinshet Abebe Hailu (Ethiopia) which was great as we took turns sharing the pace, something which might also come in useful at Comrades.  All in all I got exactly what I hoped for out of the day, and had great fun doing so with so many Vancouver Falcons team mates to chat with at the finish line and share our accomplishments together.  A huge shout out to Kim Doerksen who nailed her marathon in 2:36:59 for the win, to Bryan Andrews who ran a great race and surely helped Kim to that time both on race day and in training, and to all VFACers who competed in the marathon, half and 8km.  In the full marathon all 7 VFACers who raced all came in sub-3 - nice work!

Hope everyone else had a fun day, despite the rather rainy conditions!

With some of the elites at Media Lunch.  Photo - Dan Cumming

With fellow trail/ ultra runners Kim Magnus & Sam Lofti-Pour.  Photo - Kerry Ward

With Bryan, Kim & Courtney - part of team VFAC pre-race.  Photo: Dave Palermo

With Wayinshet at the half way mark on Spanish Banks.  Photo - Ryan Allderman

Pacing along Spanish Banks.  Photo - Ryan Allderman

Posing for the camera with 1.5km to go.  Photo - Ryan Allderman

Finish line - photo Rita Ivanauskas

With cheerer April and training buddy Kristin (who raced the half).  Photo - Kevin O'Connor

 

VFAC Coach John Hill with his 1st & 2nd place ladies!  Photo - Kevin O'Connor

With super star Ferg Hawke (he's come 2nd at Badwater 135 miler, among a whole host of other achievements).  Photo - Jim Hinze

Top 3 ladies at BMO Vancouver Marathon.  Photo - Jim Hinze

Another little half marathon jaunt

The half marathon is an awesome distance - long enough that you need endurance but short enough that you also need speed, plus for an ultra runner like me I feel I can jump into one and race a decent effort without too much of a taper, and also recover quick so get right back into training for my upcoming key races the next day.  But all that aside, the real reason that I signed up for the BMO April Fools Half marathon, that took place yesterday, was for a fun day trip with my most awesome running club, the Vancouver Falcons (VFAC).

Every Thursday evening I workout on the trails in Vancouver's Stanley Park with VFAC, it is my favourite workout of the week as we hammer speed intervals hard, push ourselves to the limit, generally get frozen cold and run until we feel like we'll vomit, and yet have the best time ever with lots of fun and lots of laughs.  I'm not sure how this magic happens, but it's a great club and great training.

The Blue Train (aka VFAC - named for our blue singlets) was in full force on the Sunshine Coast of BC yesterday.  I started out the race with new member Alex by my side, Roberto and Anne-Marie just off the front, and there was never a point in the race when I couldn't see one of my team mates up ahead - great motivation.

At the 1 mile mark with Alex
Photo: Rick Horne

The BMO April Fools Half marathon is net downhill, so known for being a pretty fast course but the 435m of descent is compensated for my 285m of climbing, so it's definitely a challenging route.  But it is also a route that plays to my strengths, I'm not the best at hammering out km after km at an even, fast pace on the flat, but if I can run just on feel, because of hills, I find this much easier mentally.  The hills also broke the course down nicely - net downhill for the first 10km, make it to 14km where a long climb begins until 17.5km, and from then to the finish at 21.1km push the pace on the downhills and flats.  There was never a moment to get bored, or to be concerned about losing a few seconds or so on a km, it was more a matter of focusing on the next hill, be it a climb or a descent.

All smiles at 5km
Photo: Rick Horne

I'm super happy that I seemed to pace myself well, I was 4th female at half way, and by around 14km moved into 2nd position which I maintained until the end.  There was no way I was going to catch team mate Kim Doerksen who ran a stellar 1:14:53 for a huge PB; oh, and she was wearing a tutu!  I did run a 46sec PB though for 1:17:42, which I'm super happy with as I really just ran on effort, with the occasional glance at my watch.

With so much downhill pounding on the tarmac I wore slightly heavier shoes than I might have done otherwise, and right now the Montrail Fluid Feel IIs are my absolute favourite go-to shoe for so many runs.

All in all, a fun day out, a solid workout and a stepping stone for longer distance races to come.

Team VFAC!
Photo: Sally Guillano

Top 3 ladies - Kim, Ellie, Anne-Marie.  All VFAC :)
Photo: Nic Browne

Happy trails,
Ellie

Chuckanut 50km

Last weekend I headed down to Bellingham, WA to run Chuckanut 50km for the 5th time, likely the race I have run the most, it's a no brainer - it's local, it usually has a competitive field, lots of friends always run it, and it's a nice early season opener.

It was great to be back racing an ultra again, after a 11.5 month break, and it was even better that my various niggles held out so, fingers crossed, I can start planning some sort of race schedule for the year ahead.

Thanks as always to Krissy Moehl RD who puts on an awesome show, along with her co-RD Heather Anderson and all the super volunteers who braved a windy day.

My race report is up on iRunFar here, along with a post race video interview here.

With Montrail/ MHW/ Flora team mate Max King at the start

Charge!  Chuckanut race start 2014

With Jesse, who pulled me up Cleator Road

Yassine got me into 'race mode' again, pushing me up Little Chinscraper

On the hunt, heading home on the 10km or so Interurban.  I came 11th overall but in the final 3rd of the race (downhill and flat) I was 4th overall.  Got to work on my hill climbing!

Catching up for lost time of the homebound trip on the Interurban trail

Hugs of happiness with Krissy

Hanging out at the finish with Flora team mates Yassine Diboun and Max King

I went for a run

I think I've run the Pacific Road Runners First Half Half marathon seven times now, it's a good start of season race and really well organized.  It's one of those races where everyone in the Vancouver running community seems to show up - from first time half marathoners, to club runners, to ultra trail runners, to Olympians.  So really it's a good old social and chance to try run hard and see lots of friends.

My main take away from the race was that competitive womens road running is looking good in Vancouver!  In 2011 I ran 1:18:49 for 1st place female, in 2013 I ran 1:18:43 for 2nd place female, and this year I ran a PB time of 1:18:28 for 4th place female, so yep - each year I've run faster yet I've slipped down in the positioning!  And I know that there were a good few fast women who might typically run this race that were not even on the start line yesterday.

I can honestly say too, that after not much racing in the past 11 months I was keen to run hard.  I've had some solid training and decent times at workouts, and was keen to get the best time I could - even if I didn't expect a PB as the legs are still not 100%.  I've spent much of the last 11 months doing cross training or easing back into running, and yesterday I wanted to forget all that and run til it hurt ... which it did!

It was great to have friend, fellow Vancouver Falcon and also ultra runner Barry Young to pace with for a good portion of the race.  We aimed to set out at same pace so it was good to have someone to check splits with until I got into a rhythm.  We were soon joined by another ultra runner, Hassan Lofti-Pour (Sammy), and Sammy had great amusement trying to get me to talk.  But I just wanted to focus on the race environment and eek out every second I could so Sammy was pretty much met with a silent brick wall.  I promise I'll chat next time we're in the opening miles of an ultra Sammy!

Early miles with Barry.  Credit - Dave Burroughs

So all in all it was a fun jaunt around the Stanley Park seawall.  It was a good test of fitness and I'm happy I ran a smart race, managing to negative split despite some headwinds in the closing miles, and squeezing 15 seconds off my PB.

Trying to drop Sammy :)  Credit - 321photos.ca/ Mark Bates

A huge thank you to Pacific Road Runners who once again organised an amazing event, and being a past member it was super to see many familiar PRR faces yesterday!  In addition, the event raised more than $50, 000 for the childrens charity Variety - not bad for a volunteer run club race!  And of course, thank you to all volunteers - it's a top notch event and you are a huge part of it.

The pain of a PB ;)  Credit - Rita Ivanauskas

And whilst I may not be 100% back to pain free running and training, it's about time I said thank you to my wonderful sponsors who have stayed with me as I have been sidelined with injury.  Before the race yesterday when many thoughts were swirling through my head, I figured that if Topher was there (President of Mountain Hardwear/ Montrail and amazing runner himself) he'd tell me to just go run and have fun.  So that's what I did :)

Yes, I'm High Maintenance :)

It's fair to say that I generally prefer to be pretty low maintenance.  When a nagging pain, which ended up being a stress fracture, last year resulted in me figuring I should go see a doctor I had to message a friend to find out which walk-in clinic would be best to go to.  Other than seeing a doctor in Banff to get my CCC medical certificate signed, I think I'd been to the doctor maybe once in the 3 or 4 years prior.  Ok, I'd see a physio occasionally when my hamstrings flared up and would get massages once in a while before or after a race, but otherwise I'm not one to go running to medical professionals unless I otherwise really need to.

Oh, how things have changed!  From May to November I was working four and a half days a week which was pretty convenient as I usually needed that bonus half day to go see a doctor, physio, massage therapist, gait analysis expert or someone else who must surely know how to fix me!

Last week I took things to a whole new level when I went to get gait analysis from Dr. Chris McLean at Fortius Lab in Burnaby.  It's an amazing centre packed full off the best experts in sports medicine, physio, gait analysis and more.  

Gait analysis at Fortius

I spent about 90 minutes there getting assessed, which involved a full discussion of my injury and running history, an analysis of me walking barefoot and then about 15 minutes of running on a treadmill.  The results collected are far more in depth than standard gait analysis.  When I went back for a 30 minute visit to discuss the results a few days later I learned the force at which I hit the ground, pelvic alignment, hip rotation issues, how I strike the ground and lots lots more.  It's definitely worthwhile for anyone interested in either resolving an injury or possibly preventing injuries.  Results are then passed on to any treating doctors or physiotherapists so an action plan of how to address any issues can be decided.

So, if anyone is looking for sports medicine professionals in and around Vancouver, here's the main list of Team Ellie!  Thanks also to many other friends who happen to be experts (Dory, Ramsey, ...) who have offered much needed advice!

I'm not exactly light-footed Bambi :)

Gait Analysis

Dr Chris McLean at Fortius, Burnaby.

Adam Janke, Paris Orthotics (various Vancouver locations).

Physiotherapy

Chris Napier, Restore Physiotherapy, Vancouver.

Jessica Owen, Copeman Health, Vancouver.

Sports Medicine

Dr. Jim Bovard, North Vancouver.

Massage Therapy

Bobby Crudo, Vancouver.

Happy trails!

Ellie