What did your Acura Ten-Mile win tell you about where you're at and what you need to do in the weeks before the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon?
Reid Coolsaet: The ten-mile was definitely a way to judge my fitness and gauge where I am with my training. Eric Gillis and I just started our marathon training two weeks ago. Now we're getting into the longer hour tempos and the longer fartlek workouts and stuff. It was a good way to kick the marathon training off and it was a good event. I ended up running 3:00 per kilometer, which is kind of what I intended to do.
Obviously, there are several weeks of hard training left before the marathon, so you're going to be ramping things up, we would assume.RC: Right. We basically started our training 14 weeks out. We'll probably have one fairly easy week at the end of the July when we run the national 10K on the track (the 10,000). And then, obviously, right back into marathon training. So it'll be 13 good weeks of marathon training leading into Scotiabank.
Will there be any trouble with summer training up there? Will it be too hot in that part of Canada?
RC: It was really hot last week. We can get weather fairly similar to New York City. Last Monday, with the humidity, it was about 100 degrees. But it's nothing like down south in the States, obviously. We can do most of our workouts in the morning and skip the heat a little bit.
Will you go to altitude at all?
RC: No, not this time. I've gone to Flagstaff a couple of times in the past, leading up to 10Ks. For this one (the marathon), I'll just train in southern Ontario.
Is the national championship 10,000 on July 28 important for selection to Canadian teams, like possibly for the 2011 World Championships?
RC: No, The only thing other than it being a national championships would be for funding. In Canada, we have our carding system, and there are points awarded for finishing as high as you can at a national championship.
You've done just two marathons. Is there any particular reason you waited until age 29 to try one?
RC: It's weird, because I always thought I was going to do a marathon. Even in high school, my endurance running was better than my shorter-end running. I always thought I was going to do one, but once I had some success with the 5K and 10K, I really just wanted to maximize that before I moved up to the marathon, and one year kind of led to another. I was chipping away at my 5K times just about every year, and I definitely stuck with that. And I still feel like I have a lot to do in the 10K. Because of injuries, I wasn't able to do it.
Simon Bairu (who has the Canadian 10,00 record of 27:23 and is part of the same Oregon training group as Chris Solinsky and Matt Tegenkamp) is probably going to be at that national championships 10,000 on July 28, isn't he?
RC: I would assume so, because he'll be looking to get his national funding in the 10K this year. He probably won't need the points with a 27:23, but I'm sure he'll still come for the win.
Is it unlikely that this will be an occasion when he'll go for an amazing time? Is it more likely to be a sit-and-kick situation – so that if you muster up an amazing kick, you could beat him?
RC: I think so. Simon doesn't like to leave anything to chance as well. He won't be going for a great time in Toronto in the end of July. It will most likely be fairly hot. But at the same time, Simon's such a competitor that he'll be pushing the pace and making it honest, I think.
Your 5000 and 10,000 personal bests from the track were set in 2007. Is there any particular reason you can cite why you weren't able to improve on those in the last couple of years? Was it a matter of not getting in the right races?
RC: Yes, in 2007 I PBed in the five and ten. In 2008, I actually had my best training build-up. But one week before I was going to open up my outdoor season, I pinched a nerve in a disc in my back. I basically didn't run for the next four months. I completely missed the 2008 outdoor track season; I didn't do one race. I totally felt that that was going to be a big breakthrough year. And then in 2009, I started the year out with a broken foot. I broke my fifth metatarsal. I was cross-training a lot and I wasn't training at all. Six weeks out from the marathon (the Ottawa Marathon), I decided it would probably be easier to get the Worlds standard in the marathon, which was 2:18, rather than getting the Worlds standard for the 5K or 10K. And so that's what I did.
You got to 2:16 in your second marathon in Berlin. Coming out of that, did you have some ideas about areas of improvement in your training or your race tactics?
RC: Definitely a lot of areas of improvement in my training, just because I had only 90 days between my two marathons. By the time I recovered from Ottawa and built back up, I didn't really put in a lot of mileage and I didn't have a long enough build-up. I was still dealing with ramping up mileage from my broken foot. I actually was running more mileage after my marathon, training for cross country and base stuff for the beginning of this year. Looking at what I've done so far for Scotiabank, it's much better than it was last year.
What kind of weekly mileage will you you get up to at your peak?
RC: About 230 to 240 kilometers (up to 150 miles). A lot of times, we do three weeks up (in mileage) and one week down.
This Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon has drawn the best of the Canadian male marathoners. Can you explain a little bit about why you guys have all decided to race in Toronto instead of going out of the country a little bit later in the year an trying someplace like Chicago?
RC: The Scotiabank Marathon is a marathon I'd definitely want to do at some point in my career. Some people say a little bit later in the year would be less humid. But we can't use these times to qualify for the (2012) Olympics, so I wouldn't say I'm chasing the ultimate fast marathon this fall. As far as experience goes, Scotiabank is one of the top marathons on my list. It really comes at a good time this year. Having said that, it is a fast course, so there's no reason why you can't run fast there if there's good weather.
I've been to the World Championships before. I haven't been to the Olympics because of that injury, and the Olympics are definitely at the top of my list. Since Daegu (the Worlds in South Korea) is going to be so hot next year, if I still need a qualifying time for the Olympics, I would definitely look to run a fast fall marathon rather than the World Championships.
From what I read of your blogs, it seems like you like workouts with enormous amounts of 2:00 repeats. I saw one reference to 25x 2:00 and another to 15 x 2:00. Are those done on the track or the roads? Why are those good workouts for you?
RC: Those are always done either on the trails or the road. Especially at the beginning part of the marathon (training) phase, I'm able to run at a decent pace for a longer time, with all of the rest that you get. It's basically just kind of getting used to run at 3:05 per kilometer, 3:08 per kilometer without completely exerting yourself. But we still get 15 minutes of work in the 25 by 2:00. So we're basically just getting used to the pace, and as our training progresses, we can have longer blocks with less rest at the marathon pace we want to run.
What's the rest interval in-between each 2:00?
RC: Like one minute.
Did you have much of a university running career?
RC: Coming out of high school, I really hadn't done much. I went to the University of Guelph, which definitely has the best cross country program in Canada. My last four years there, we won the Canadian Cross Country Championships. I went from being an alternate my first year; my fifth year, I finished third at our national university championships.
Were there sports you did when you were younger? How did you make the transition to being a runner?
RC: Typically, in high school, I would run cross country and then in the wintertime I would downhill ski. And then in the spring and summer, I would skateboard. I just kind of did a bunch of different sports. I played a bit of volleyball as well in high school. I never really excelled at running too much. I did well locally, but not even really on the provincial level. But I always liked it. I always liked cross country. Because there was this big pack, it was kind of easy to do and it was fun, whereas track was a bit more cutthroat, so I never really did track until the very end of high school.
When you got out of the University of Guelph, did you sense that if you kept serious about running, you could make national teams?
RC: Yeah, at the very end of university, I made my first world university cross country team. That was a good step in the right direction. Basically, at the end of university, I was working, but I was only working 25 hours a week. I was kind of at the point where I'd be stupid to let running go but I'd also be stupid to do it full-time because I wasn't really making any money at all. I was working 25 hours a week at a bank until 2005, when I had a good breakthrough.
So at this Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September, what time do you have in mind for yourself, realistically?
RC: Right now, in our training, we're kind of basing our workouts off 2:12 pace. Hopefully, as our training progresses and things look better, we might look at running 2:11. But right now, 2:12 is the time at the back of my head.
And that Canadian record of Jerome Drayton's (2:10:08) has survived for a long time. Do you think by 2011 that's something you can take a legitimate shot at?RC: Yeah, I think so; 2:10 is a barrier that I'm definitely looking to break at some point. With Eric (Gillis) and Simon (Bairu) and myself, all running for it, maybe it's not even the record by the time I go to get it. But I think the three of us are all looking at the 2:10 barrier as something to break.
If you can't get enough Coolsaet: Reid also updated his blog at Flotrack where he explains his fingerbang failure.
ShareThis