Tag Archives: ottawa hospital run for a reason

Fun, Tips, Training

Book Giveaway: Running on Air

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On May 26th I will run my fifth Ottawa Marathon. For the past four years I have also raised money for the Ottawa Hospital as part of Ottawa Race Weekend. In conjunction with my efforts to raise money for the Ottawa Hospital I have decided to hold a book giveaway.

This year I’ll be giving away a copy of Running on Air by Budd Coates.  If you haven’t heard of the book, the author presents a new training method involving rhythmic breathing to help you run smarter and stronger. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

To enter the giveaway you can any of the following and leave a comment for each below to indicate you have done so (1 entry per comment).

  • Follow me on Twitter, @patruns
  • Like The Courage of Lungs on Facebook
  • Tweet about the giveaway

As an added bonus, I will provide two entries to anyone who helps me help the Ottawa Hospital by making a donation. Click here for more details. Once again this year the money I raise will be directed to neurology at the Ottawa Hospital. This cause became important to me after my father passed away in 2012 as a result of a stroke.

Please help me help the Ottawa Hospital, and donate generously to this very important cause.

The winner will be chosen on Tuesday May 21.

Good luck!

Boston Marathon, Training

One Week until the Ottawa Marathon

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In one week from today I will be recovering from the Ottawa Marathon. If you have read this blog before you’ll know my goal, and possibly obsession, is to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

In order to qualify for the 2012 Boston Marathon I need to run a 3:15 and with the new registration rules that went into effect this year my hope for next week is that I can run a 3;10 or just under that in order to give myself at least a five minute buffer from my qualifying time.

Right now I am both optimistic because I feel that I am in the best shape I have ever been and I am confident in my training but also nervous because this is a big goal for me to aim for and let’s face it a marathon is a long distance leaving plenty of time for something to go wrong.

If I go by the average time of my Yasso 800’s then I am right where I should be in terms of my progress. For those who are not familiar with the term, Yasso 800’s are a workout developed by Bart Yasso where you run hard for 800 m followed by a 400 m recovery jog. The idea is that the average time of your 800’s can predict your marathon finish time.

I completed two workouts involving Yasso 800’s during this training cycle. The first one involved 8 Yasso 800’s with an average time of 3:11 and the second workout involved 10 Yasso 800’s with an average time of 3:09. Hopefully the theory proves true for me as I will be quite pleased with a 3:09 or 3:11 next Sunday!

This morning I took my daughter for a 20 km run in her Chariot. The rest of the week will be pretty low key for me in terms of running. Tuesday I will go for an easy 8 km run, Wednesday I will go for an easy 6 km run, Thursday I will go for an 8 km run with 5 km at marathon pace and to end my training I will go for a very easy 3 km run Saturday.

You may also recall that I set a fundraising goal for myself again this year as part of Race Weekend. So far I have managed to achieve over 70% of my goal and should be able to reach that goal by the time I go pickup my race kit at the end of the week.