Ottawa Marathon route announced!

The powers that be have decided to change the route of the Ottawa Marathon for 2011. The new route is pictured below.

That is what I will be facing on 29th May 2011. For more details of the marathon course (as well as the courses for the 2km, 5km, 10km and half-marathon races) click on this link.

I am pretty familiar with the stretch along both sides of the Ottawa River and Rideau Canal, the 20 to 30 km stretch is pretty much the middle portion of the Army half-marathon (but in reverse). I will have to familiarize myself with the route  through China town, little Italy and Hintonburg. At first glance it looks like a really nice route, not too many steep hills, but a lot of different locations, landmarks, neighbourhoods, scenery to look at to keep my mind occupied.

February 2011 - First challenges

Following on from a solid start to the year, I had aspirations of running a personal best for total mileage in one month in February. Unfortunately, the kids got pretty sick this month at times I had to squeeze in runs as-and-when, if at all, as I felt like I was borderline sick (but never fully succumbing) on more than one occasion.

Despite this, I did manage 14 runs and 169.24 km (so less than 4 km short of a personal best). February, like January was a month of base-building runs at easy pace, with a race thrown in. I ran the Winterman Half Marathon as a test of fitness and had a really good race, clocking 1:53:08 (click here to read a race report). 

The weather is extremely variable at the moment, we are having snow storms, rain, above 0˚C days, and snap freezes in the minus 20s, so it can be pretty challenging out there. Hopefully the warmer weather and clearer paths/roads will be just around the corner.

In March I will move on to the 2nd phase of my Marathon training plan that will include "tempo runs" at threshold pace (see this article for a detailed explanation). These are faster-paced runs, so I am looking forward to the change and to see how my body will respond. I will also continue my long runs (that will build up to 28 kms) and easy-paced shorter runs.