Helen's Running Journal
2008
“If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
Vincent van Gogh
The first year I began running seriously was also the first year I ended up with a knee injury. Just as summer was beginning and everyone was lacing up their shoes and heading out, I was stuck inside my apartment. What kept me inspired and hopeful was another runner, Peter, who posted his journal on the Web. It's no longer around (much to my dismay), but his daily entries of his training highs and lows - as well as his own recovery from a similar injury - got me through summer and to the 1999 Canadian International Marathon. Every evening when I came back from the office I followed his struggle, right up to his first marathon in Quebec City in 1999. I never sent an email to him, much less met him, but he was a great coach. To Peter from Montreal, thank you.
2008 Goals: Complete an Ironman in 12 hours
2007 was a wildly successful year. I am sitting here typing this and thinking of all that I have right now, and I know that one year ago many of the most important of these things were unimaginable. When I take a glance back and try to size up the distance I've travelled, mostly figuratively, from what I was then to what I am and have now, I'm humbled. What was the most important lesson to me in 2007 was understanding that I am a collection of my failures. This is not at all as bad a thing as it sounds, and I think what I really had to learn was that failure, taken properly, is a most marvelous force in life. It was not the negative I had always thought it was. The part of failure that we often overlook is our response to it. I think I finally understand that failure is an inevitable condition of being human. What marks the successful person from the one whose life has stagnated is the direction and attitude they take afterward. If 2006 at Ironman Canada had not been so rotten, I would not have re-examined my training and my assumptions about myself as an athlete. I would not have made changes that otherwise seemed too far out. And I certainly would not have run an easy and joy-filled marathon on race day.
All of this examination comes with two conditions: honesty with ourselves, and a careful balance away from the arrogance that success can bring. In 2008, what do I really want? What matters to me? What accomplishment will give the most widespread fulfillment? The pursuit of an ever faster Ironman has to be the answer. I want to stay humble, I want to keep asking myself how I can squeeze out yet another minute of time saved on the swim or the bike or the run. I want to know how I can do this while still maintaining a decent relationship with friends and a total effort at work. The funny thing is, I win whether I fail or succeed.
Week of January 1
Saturday My first run of 2008, and thankfully it isn't in the -19 Celsius / -29 windchill that we've had in most of eastern Canada since returning home from London. In fact, it's -4 Celsius, so I'm out for an easy 1.5 hour run. There's so much snow on the roads that the run can't be anything but easy. I run with my Asics and I'm quite happy when I'm on the packed snow around Sunshine Gardens. Running in the traffic along Waggoner's Lane is a bit scary. Crawling up Golf Club Road and seeing how much fitness I've lost in the past month is almost scarier. I really put the emphasis on relaxing my legs below the knee and letting my foot lightly tap the ground. Even so, my quadriceps and hip flexors are exhausted when I turn around at the far end of Golf Club Road. The careful trotting on icy and snowy roads makes me feel like I'm running bowlegged. It's hard not to compare myself to last year when I was (trying to) get ready for South Africa and running longer distances. 1h30min
Week of January 6
Friday Friday night in Ottawa. Things don't look at all like they did the last time I was here. The snow is more or less gone and the weather is almost spring-like. When we start running this evening, however, there's quite a wind blowing and the water and slush are freezing on the road. I feel great the minute I start, probably because it's so late in the evening. We run along the flooded Rideau River up until Montreal Road, then take North River Road for another mile or so. Running along North River Road was like a surprise, a haven of quiet with little traffic and bare pavement. The road ends after about a mile, and on the way back I speed up a bit. I'm really into running a long distance tonight, so just before Montreal Road I double back and redo North River Road, this time on my own. The quiet of the evening has kind of seeped into me and I want to take a closer feel at what's going on inside while I run.
I've really made progress in runs where I've explored the limits of fear and the effect that fear has in terms of creating self-restraint. Whenever I run and ask myself "What am I afraid of?", the answer is always "Fall in", which doesn't really seem to answer that question at all. OK, so maybe I haven't got an answer to what I'm afraid of, or maybe I'm afraid of finding out what I'm afraid of, but I seem to be able to get around that by knowing what I should do about it. Just fall in. And that's just the image I have in my mind as I run: falling forward into my next stride. I listen to U2's Bad, which seems so perfect for this evening. 1hr
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day
To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Blue silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...
This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away
I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no
Week of January 13
Sunday I'm so glad to see the sun this morning when I wake up, so for once I don't really mind going for a long run before noon. I'm just not a morning person. Don't get me wrong - I love being awake early and mornings are very special times. I just can't seem to get my body going until after lunch. Still, I feel half-decent when we start. Not very supple or strong, but not nearly as bad as I felt during our morning runs in London. The sun is out and my running song is Paul Brady's The Island. It reminds me of my marathon in Penticton last summer during Ironman Canada, and the view of the mountains on the other side of Skaha Lake. We run to the Rockcliffe Parkway to see if we can run on the paved trail parallel to it, but there's still too much snow and ice. So back toward the Canadian Police College, around the RCMP stables, then toward the Aviation Museum. My sweetie turns back toward home and I keep running a bit longer alone. The sun is out, I'm well dressed, and the pavement is clear - I really want to take advantage of these conditions and put in as many miles as I can. I really enjoyed having such a huge aerobic and running-specific base last year that I want to replicate that if I can for 2008. That means finding every opportunity I can to run over 1.5 hours.
I head up a long hill away from St Laurent Boulevard. The hill really takes something out of me. Phew, I've got a lot of work to do between now and Lake Placid! The road takes me to the entrance of some huge abandoned facility, which I realise is CFB Ottawa. It's great to run on traffic-free roads, but it's eerie to see how decrepit this ghost-town is. Some of the married quarters are still occupied. At the turn-around, a road that looks like the farm roads I ran this summer near the cottage in Keremeos, I start feeling a little tired. That makes me happy, because this is usually the point where I really start doing some self-discovery and some good hard work to see how I can keep running through the fatigue. I start looking for any tension, any movement I can tweak, any new way of thinking about running that will save energy. I run lightly off the ball of my foot and my toes, trying to get more leverage out of the simple act of a footfall and turnover. Back at St Laurent I turn toward the RCMP stables rather than heading straight home. It would be nice to get close to two hours today. I was reading Runner's World this morning, which had an article about the growing popularity of ultramarathons. It must have inspired me for today's run. 1h50
Tuesday Today's sun melted some of the heavy snow on the roads left over from yesterday. We were out for a very quick run tonight, only 40min. I had that quiet frame of mind again, and it felt nice to just trot along without much effort and settle into a stride that felt more like a little tap on the ground than a real push. I remember one of my favourite excerpts from Roger Joslin's book, Running the Spiritual Path, called Touch of God. I always think of it as touching the Earth with my feet in a way that graces the ground, thanking it for what it provides me. It's an exercise that seems to bring a very simple joy to my run for however long I can keep up the focus, and it also makes me very conscious about my step, trying to get lighter and lighter on my feet until I feel like fleet-footed Joan Benoit Samuelson. Almost. 40min
Saturday I haul myself out for an early afternoon run today. Tomorrow is supposed to be frightfully cold and I don't want to wait too long today because of snow forecasted for later on. I'm really, really not feeling good. It's mostly leftover symptoms from poor diet over the past few days. But I'm determined to be out for as close to two hours as I can. We run to Sussex Drive, turn up to the path along the Rideau Canal. My sweetie turns back after about 30 minutes of running while I continue on. I have to shorten my stride and really relax otherwise I'll never last two hours.
I spend most of the run thinking about a speaker invited to our class this week. A very highly placed bureaucrat, someone who can be called a success if you measure the number of ranks they rose, the level of responsibility they have today, and what is clearly a knack for operations. But also a person who never once referred to their employees, nor to the sense of responsibility one at such a rank ought to have in shaping a compassionate workplace. References from the class about humanity, challenge, and resilience were met with the same bland response. It takes me the entire run to figure out that whatever I do in my career, I must never ever turn into what I saw this week in that guest speaker.
I turn around near Hog's Back and shuffle slowly toward downtown Ottawa. I'm really struggling now, and there's a wicked headwind as well as flurries to add to my misery. But I did get my two hours in.
Week of January 20
Thursday Yep, I haven't been running since Saturday. Cold, snow, late evenings. It's a typical January. I go out for a run alone this evening, which, given the -15 Celsius temperature, is pretty amazing. But the nice thing about Ottawa is that the wind is much kinder here. I go down Beechwood toward St. Laurent and I'm pleasantly surprised at how clear the sidewalk is. It's also nice to feel like I'm running well. I put the ChiRunning stuff to work, pulling up my stature and relaxing my legs as much as I can. Wow, things are going really well. I get to St Laurent and turn left toward Sandridge, pass the Canadian Police College, and trot along until the road becomes too snowbound to keep going. Then back home by retracing my steps. I can't believe I manage 50 minutes in this cold.
Friday I had the afternoon to myself and I was really hoping for a nice long run. It was warm, road conditions were good, and I had a pretty good route in mind: Down Mackay, past Rideau Hall and to Sussex Drive. See the Prime Minister leave his home for the office. Along Sussex to Mackenzie, turn back, and back up Mackay. After 40 minutes of dead legs, wheezing, and low blood pressure I trudged back and called it a day.
Week of January 27
Sunday It's my sweetie's long run today. He's decided to sign up for a spring marathon, something I vowed I would never do again after Two Oceans last year. That doesn't stop me from joining him on a really nice Sunday afternoon in Ottawa when just about everyone and their dog is out and about. We head for the path along the Canal. Both the path and the Canal are pretty crowded since sections of the Canal opened yesterday for skating. At about the halfway point my sweetie and I start practicing some of the ChiRunning stuff, including one of my adaptations. As you run, rate your level of perceived exertion on a scale of 1 to 10. Then relax as much as possible while running, until you feel as if you're tipping yourself into each stride, and you're able to isolate the muscle groups working to keep you moving. Your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) should be quite low now. The trick for the rest of the run is to keep your RPE at that low number while trying to achieve the speed of the former higher RPE that you had earlier in the run. To do this, you need to carefully examine what muscles became tense when you started to speed up, or find areas of unnecessary tension that you can get rid of. It's quite a tough mental exercise, but a phenomenal way to increase efficiency and endurance. 1h55
Thursday There's no wind tonight! In Atlantic Canada, that's always an exceptional thing and an occasion that must not be left aside. We've had some big weather fluctuations in the past few days, and the freeze-thaw cycles have left most side streets covered in a thick, smooth layer of ice. I do the Sunshine Garden loop four times because it seems to be about the only road that's both traffic-free and has enough bare pavement here and there to run on. I like how I feel tonight: upright, loose, strong core. I can tell that I've been spending some time on the elliptical trainer this week. Over the four loops around Sunshine Gardens, I try to pick up speed gradually while loosening up even more. The only muscle groups that are working are my adductors (inside thigh) and gluteal groups. As I speed up I find my arms coming up higher and closer to my torso, which is kind of a weird and insecure feeling. 1h15
Week of February 4
Thursday Wow, I'm down to one run a week. Clearly we are in the midst of a very Canadian winter. Things aren't that cold right now, but there's been an awful lot of snow and roads are narrow with poor traction. But I really feel like running tonight and I know that Sunshine Gardens is always a decent route. February 7 is my anniversary at work and the Chinese New Year for us Rats, so it's a great day and it's going to be a great year. I want to celebrate with a run. I go around Sunshine Gardens for an hour, doing quite well given how hard I've worked my legs this week. I like thinking of today as the first day of the year. 1hr
Saturday What a beautiful day! When I wake up in the morning, I know I'll be running today no matter what. It's actually not a good idea, given that I'm participating in the Law Enforcement Torch Run tomorrow and doing all 23km from Oromocto to Fredericton, but there's the possibility of a snowstorm cancelling that run. And if that does happen, then I'll regret not going out and making the most of today. If I do go out for a run today and then try tomorrow's 23km run, I'll be struggling to keep up with the group. I decide to enjoy today's weather and risk tomorrow's pain. What a price we pay for sunlight in winter! As I'm standing in front of the closet surveying the huge mound of shoes and boots I've got tossed in there, I spot my yellow Asics that I haven't worn since December. Hey, why not give them a try? Sure, I had some pretty bad runs with them, but that was just a coincidence, right?
I do the usual boring route around Sunshine Gardens. It isn't too much fun this far into February, but it's pretty much the only safe route left close to home. I add Waggoners Lane and watch for traffic. The Asics-bad run coincidence is now more than a coincidence: it's a solid cause-and-effect link. I'm struggling to keep an easy pace and whenever I pause, my legs tremble. How frustrating, especially when I know that after all the bike and elliptical training I did this week I'd be having a great run right now if it wasn't for the shoes! The lesson here is never, ever to rely on other people's advice when it comes to footwear. The Asics were a recommendation of a very experienced sales clerk who had done lots of marathons. Oh well, they'll make really cool walking-around shoes in summer. 1h25
Week of February 17
Sunday A gorgeous day for the Special Olympics Torch Run that's done by law enforcement agencies. Actually, anyone can participate, not just peace officers, and that's why I'm here today. It's sunny with a teeny bit of wind. Thirty-odd runners are gathered in the movie theatre at CFB Gagetown, ready to run the 13.9 miles (23km) to Fredericton. We start out at a very fast pace because there's this horrible, nasty b^&*V running with us who decides to set the pace, and in doing so she decided to overlook the fact that, as a local marathon winner, she was rather faster than the rest of us. She tore a strip off the police driving the front escort vehicle, tried to run by the vehicle on several occasions, and ignored any advice from the driver that she slow down because the group was getting too stretched out for safety. Thankfully, Superb%^&h left us just before we passed the Fredericton Airport.
But even after she left and we settled into a more reasonable 8:30 - 8:40min/mile pace, I still suffered for most of the run. The starting pace had been way too fast for me, and once I found my groove, my IT band found its groove too. The wacky weather of the past few weeks and slumped the centre of the road so that I was running with my right leg just a little higher than my left leg. Two-thirds of the way through the band was causing me agony as it had never done in my life. I had to grunt to control the pain and sometimes it seemed as if I had the breath taken out of me. We ran as a group through Fredericton, and regardless of what this did to my knee I did really enjoy the occasion to be out with some good runners and to have an entire 13 miles of asphalt to run on.
Saturday Another sunny day, but this time in Ottawa. It's my first workout of any kind (other than swimming, which I never count as a workout) since the torch run last week. It has taken that long for my knee and hamstrings to recover. The problem with my hamstrings surprised me, since I had thought that they would be a good deal stronger and capable of handling running. But I haven't been doing all that much yoga in the past few months, so muscles are awfully short. As Gordo Byrn points out on his blog, tight muscles are weak muscles. Today my sweetie is doing an easy mid-distance run (7 miles) and we go down toward the Rideau Canal. I keep ahead for most of the run since I'm enjoying my stride. The second half of the run is quite painful: my hamstrings complain every time a leg hits the ground, and I have to play with my posture to find some relief. And the Canal is crowded, we pick a bad route through the Byward Market and I get angry as we keep dodging people. Not a fun run at all. 1h10
Week of March 2
Saturday You've probably wondering where in the world I've been in the past few weeks. Actually, if you've been wondering that, it's because you obviously don't live in this part of the world and you're oblivious to the weather. Snowstorm, freezing rain, temperatures going up and then dropping by ranges of 20 degrees Celsius....It's a record-breaking winter as far as precipitation goes. Today was a very small interlude, a +5 Celsius overcast afternoon between two freezing rain warnings. It's the only day that I get a combination of daylight and bare asphalt that make running safe at this time of the year. I start out and do some running in the street behind Waterloo Row. The decision to go for Waterloo Row first rather than Sunshine Gardens or Golf Club Road is deliberate: I want to get out of my routine, to get a little more used to trying new things. I'm a terrible one for getting in a rut, so if I can start getting out of it on the little things, then maybe that will keep going into the big things.
It feels so great to be back running. My posture is tall and strong, but I also notice that I don't have the strength or endurance I had earlier in the year in spite of the work on the elliptical trainer. I trot back across town on Charlotte Street and add some time around Sunshine Gardens. I don't start really hitting my stride and speeding up until the 1h30 mark. And by them my right hip is killing me. I'm blaming it on the shoes, which are long past their due date. 1h45
Week of March 9
Wednesday When I leave work this evening it's warm enough that the streets have cleared up a little. And the return to Daylight Savings Time means that even though the snowbanks are making the streets pretty narrow, there's enough daylight for the remainder of the evening to go out for a run and not worry about getting hit by a car. I decide to wear my Asics, even though I don't like them very much and they almost guarantee a bad run. I'm testing the theory that my latest bout of IT band syndrome is caused by my very old pair of Nikes. I really want to go out to Golf Club Road because I always associate it with peace and quiet. There are lots of other runners out this evening, all of them going around Sunshine Gardens like me. I follow a very fit-looking couple ahead of me, and it's nice to see that I can keep up with them. Then on to Woodstock Road and up Golf Club Road. Wow, have I ever lost some cardiovascular capacity. I struggle up the steep part of the hill, then eventually get back into things as I go by the golf course. So far the Asics are comfortable and my knee and hip are doing very well. I don't like how my stride feels - more rounded and set back than I usually run - but it is nice to run pain free.
I turn around at the far end of Golf Club Road and start my way back up the hill, I remember a run I did on this route a few years ago when I was getting into Chi Running. I had been thinking of Aristotle's quote, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." And I had putting that literally into action: running "excellently." I try it again this evening and it's as deeply satisfying as I remember it. So why don't I do it more? Like most people, I just don't remember or I get distracted for a while. But to paraphrase a quote, the true strength of a mind is its ability to bring itself back to the task at hand. I run down the hill, slog up slushy Marlborough Drive, then take a chance on the trail between Marlborough Drive and Hanwell Road. To my amazement, the freezing rain we had two weekends ago has been covered with the very lightest dusting of snow, and the surface is now hard and smooth enough to run on. It's absolutely beautiful, almost a fairy tale. Back around Sunshine Gardens and home, pain free. 1h15
Saturday Woohoo! I get to run twice in one week! When I went out for groceries this afternoon I noticed that even though skies were overcast, roads were clear and it was quite warm. And these days my general rule of thumb is that if it's daylight and the roads are clear, I'm out running. I'd really like to do two hours, but I'm not sure if I'll be happy enough with the Asics to do that. I go out to Waterloo Row and lace back in the quiet streets. Overall I feel OK. I've got Afterglow in my head and I spend a lot of time thinking about relaxing my hips and adductors. But I miss the relaxed, higher knee lift when I run with adidas. I cross town again and do a loop around Sunshine Gardens. Even though I'm keeping a very easy pace, this run is turning out to be quite a cardiovascular workout. My lungs are burning and I even stop a few times to catch my breath. OK, so I didn't have much to eat last night and I did do a hard indoor bike session, but this is brutal. Andi it's only a 1h30min run!
Week of March 16
Monday I'm on a roll. Three days of running in less than a week: what a luxury! I'm sticking to my rule of thumb of running on days with clear roads and broad daylight, so even though I put a lot into the past weekend I'm back out today. This time I've got a new pair of sneakers, adidas Response Trail. They have to be the ugliest pair of shoes I've ever bought. They're so bad I'm sure I'll run faster just so that people don't see me for very long. They're dark bluish grey, and the lining is hot pink. I'm feeling nauseous just typing that. When I start my run I also find they're a little too cushy for my liking. And as with most trail shoes, the heel is still low (to increase stability on rough terrain.) But they're definitely not as bad as the Asics even if the ride is way too soft. Hm, maybe I can find a heel wedge for the Asics.
Anyway, I go for Sunshine Gardens. Remember Gizmo Watch? It's with me too. My curiosity about my pace has finally gotten to me, and I want to see if I've gotten any faster over the past year. Gizmo Watch is pretty schizophrenic on that topic. I'm somewhere between a 5:04min/km and 6:30min/km pace. I struggle up Golf Club Road and I'm disappointed when I find I'm not recovering on the second hill after the really steep one. The wind is blowing very hard (it was 44km/hr when I left) and the surface of the road is doing a funny melting/freezing thing with the snow drifting over it. Then I catch up to a group training for Boston. I can keep up with them for about two kilometres before I gratefully opt for the path back home instead of following the group up Marlborough Drive. It's nice to have a sense of what it feels like to run strongly, however. I can't keep it up for very long. 1h25
Wednesday A mild evening and my sweetie and I are out on the streets enjoying it while it lasts. Tomorrow may be the first day of spring, but the weather is bringing in more winter. I've added heel cushions to my new adidas and put my orthotics on top of the cushions. It's all part of an effort to get more of the forward feel that I like in my running shoes. The adidas are better than the Asics, but still a little to soft for me. We go around the streets behind Waterloo Row then go for Sunshine Gardens, picking up a little speed on the way. My waist seems to be really working hard today. That's a good sign; it means that my core is engaged, and the forward tipping of the shoes seems to be bringing my hips in line where they should be. 1h20
Week of March 23
Tuesday At last, Ironman training has begun. Only 117 days left until I'm standing in Mirror Lake along with 2200 other people. I make it to swim practice this morning, and this evening I've got a 1h05 run that I turn into 1h15 until the cold chases me back home. I put the heel wedges in the Asics tonight to see if that would make a difference in my running, and I'm pleasantly surprised when I start down Northumberland. This is going to be a good run. My legs feel tight and strong, I've got good shoes on, and I'm in an introspective mood. If you read Gordo Byrne's great blog, you might have remembered him once mentioning a book called The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron. It didn't seem like the kind of book I thought someone like Gordo would recommend, so the fact that he wrote about it in such great terms made me go out and get a copy of my own. The funny thing is, once I got the book I put off reading it. For months. For whatever odd reason, I was afraid to open it up, start the work in it, and in doing so take responsibility for the things that aren't working in my life. Not that there are many, but there are always some.
But I also see Ironman training as a chance to start setting the foundation of the kind of life I really want to live. So this weekend I started reading the book and had just finished Chapter 1 this evening before my run. That's the chapter with the affirmations, most of them based on the notion that we are not ourselves creative, we are merely conduits of creativity from a greater spirit or power. It's an idea I've always loved, and some of my best runs last year were when I let that concept take over. I'd imagine that it was not my own energy moving me forward, but something greater than me. I tried it again this evening, combining it with a lot of the ChiRunning stuff to take advantage of posture and power. For a few strides I'd feel things click: my arm swing would be strong enough to lead my legs, my hips would be totally engaged, legs and ankles totally relaxed. Sustaining all of that didn't turn out to be a problem at all. The cold was a problem; I was underdressed for what I thought was going to be a mild winter evening. 1h15
Thursday I saw a flock of Canada geese flying north this afternoon on my way back home from work. I was at the top of the hill and the geese were no more than 50 feet over the road. I cheered up right away, and the first thing I thought of was the start of Ironman Canada last year, all of us standing on the beach, the helicopter chopping overhead, and the Canada geese that flew right over us. "Nature won't let you down." And it really did feel like spring today. I couldn't believe how much snow had melted by the time I was starting my run this evening. I wore the Asics without the heel wedges since I was starting to get a bit of pain under the metastarsals from the increased pressure on the forefoot. But I felt great even so. My legs were very tired from yesterday's tough bike ride, and I opted to go home after two loops around Sunshine Gardens instead of three. In the meantime, I enjoyed the high cadence, the light feet, and putting more emphasis on getting my core and my butt to drive my legs rather than vice versa. I was a bit disappointed about heading home after only an hour of running: a good post on Slowtwitch about the training characteristics of US Olympic marathon qualifiers as well as an article about runner's high in the New York times all talk about the benefits of putting in the long distances when you're training, more so than favouring high intensity workouts. The only drawback to high mileage is less time to recover and a greater likelihood of injury. 1hr.
Saturday My first real long run of the year, and it's only two hours. I try very hard not to compare myself with where I was last year: getting ready for my trip to South Africa, and having a reservoir of endurance far larger than what I have today. I put the heel wedges back in the Asics and head out to Waterloo Row. I'm ready for a tough run: I didn't eat much for supper last night, and my stomach was growling this morning when I woke up. Translation: not enough glucose stores to get me through a short run. The first half of the run is OK. My sweetie and I have been talking about ChiRunning, and something I keep coming back to is the early footstrike. I found a good article about running technique and correcting for overstriking. I try it out as I lace through the streets between Waterloo Row and University Avenue. Basically I do more or less what the article suggests: put your foot down sooner than you think. Nothing fancy or elaborate about it. Right away I tip forward and my stride shortens by several inches. My butt also starts to really generate more of a push-off at each stride, and by the time I've started down Charlotte Street over to Sunshine Gardens, those muscles are aching. Last night's bike workout has already fatigued them. I wonder how they'll manage in an Ironman, when 112 miles of biking in hills will have exhausted them, and then they'll be expected to push through a marathon.
Hour Two is a doubly-whammy of low blood sugar and a tired butt. I trot around Sunshine Gardens, go over to Marlborough Drive, and shuffle slowly up one side of the hill, down the other, then retrace my steps. Hm, this is a great hill for repeats if I do both sides. I go back to Sunshine Gardens but I'm really struggling now. Dizzy, HUNGRY, and unbearably thirsty. Shuffle back home. 2hrs
Week of March 30
Tuesday The temperature is rising tonight; snowbanks are melting and because there's absolutely no wind, there's a heavy fog that makes running around the city so peaceful. I put on my Asics without the heel wedges - I think the Asics and I are starting to get along - and go out for a long easy run. Twice around Sunshine Gardens, out to Marlborough Drive, up and back twice for lots of hills, then back home. I've got my heartrate monitor on tonight for the first time in ages. The numbers seem awfully high for the low rate of perceived exertion: this is an easy run, but my heartrate is averaging 152bpm, except toward the end of the run when I loosen up and pick up the pace. The footstrike work that I was doing on Saturday seems a bit easier today, although I still can't sustain it for the entire run. At least my confidence is up a little; I don't know if I could have run this distance so easily last week. 1h35
Thursday Almost warm enough not to wear a tuque this evening...almost. I still went out with one on, and even my winter tights, but the edge of winter has definitely been replaced by spring. I listen to Bruce Cockburn's beautiful Somebody Touched Me before starting tonight's tempo run. It seems as if it's been a long while since I've run with a good song in my head. Everything is very tight for the first few minutes of the run; my back is aching from weightlifting and a swim practice with lots of pull buoy, my legs have the snap to them that means short hamstrings, and there's no swaying or give in my hips. I take it easy for the first 15 minutes around Sunshine Gardens, then start to push a little as I make my way over to Marlborough Drive. My heartrate monitor is showing a much lower heartrate than Tuesday; I'm averaging about 148bpm for a much higher rate of perceived exertion. Must be the song. Having something external like that helps drop all that clutter from my mind and fall into the rhythm of running more easily. I go up and back Maarlborough Drive twice to get more hills. I'm really dragging on the last one; to keep pushing I remind myself of the old cycling adage that hills are speedwork in disguise. I got a copy of a DVD of highlights of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France stages from 1999 to 2004, and I'm pretty inspired by cycling tonight. There's great footage of him in some of the mountain stages, holding back and waiting in the pack, then suddenly moving into the lead and breaking away at an eye-popping acceleration. Lots and lots of hard work, hours in the saddle and really getting to know the bike until riding it becomes a sixth sense.
On my way back I go back through Sunshine Gardens and really start pushing. I try something I've noticed in previous runs, and that's to look up at the sky or at the tops of trees as I run. The result is instantaneous: my body tilts forward, my chest opens up, and I really start moving without any real additional exertion. What exactly is going on here? More experimentation required. 1h05
Saturday Cool, drizzly and wet, but warm enough to finally for the first time this year were my adidas Supernova. It's nice to be running in shoes that are light and solid. I'm inspired by more Lance Armstrong/Nike ads on YouTube today. Something about watching what commitment is all about. My route today is the usual Sunshine Gardens/Golf Club Road loop. I've got my heartrate monitor on and it stays in the low 140s until Golf Club Road, then maxes out at 159bpm in the steepest part of the hill. I'm quite proud of that. I make sure to keep the pace low and steady. Back down Golf Club Road, now getting very cold as the drizzle becomes more insistent, and out along Woodstock Road toward the old highway. I've also got gels and my Fuel Belt on today since I don't want a repeat of last week. Surprised how easy this run was. 2h15.
Week of April 6
Tuesday Warm enough for my lighter long running tights! And my adidas Supernova! It's twilight as I start down Northumberland and I feel incredibly heavy. I'm having a hard time breathing and my heartrate feels very high. Nothing special, around Sunshine Gardens. 1h15
Friday I get out very late this evening, and what I love about running late at night is that I always seem to run well. There's something about the lack of traffic, the roads all to myself, the quiet time to just reflect and let it all melt into a good stride. Actually, my stride feels very unusual, possibly because I've been biking outdoors for the first time this year and doing lots of power surges on the hills. It seems as if my footstrike is earlier than usual and I'm running with a very high turnover. This is all good, mind you. I'm just not used to it. Two loops around Sunshine Gardens, out along Woodstock Road to Golf Club Road, up Marlborough and back, then back home. I want to accelerate on my way back but it's just not in me. 1h30
Week of April 13
Sunday I switched my long run to today based on the weather. It cleared out as I was running this afternoon and things were much drier than they would have been had I gone running yesterday, but I'm not sure switching runs or even going out at all was a good idea. Yesterday I had an unusual lower back pain and I was feeling very weak; today the pain was down into my right hip and agony from the moment I woke up in the morning. I was pretty happy that I could run at all, and things were going wonderully until, at exactly two hours into the run and on my way back home along Woodstock Road, I could barely lift my right leg. The tilted sidewalk had suddenly made the hip worse, but the hip pain had obviously been building up for a while. It was one of the worst hip pains I had felt in years, and it was just as shocking and angering as the ITB pain I had had a few weeks ago during the torch run from Oromocto to Fredericton. I stopped and stretched a few times - relief came when I was bent over at the hip - and found that if I ran faster and back on the road instead of the sidewalk, things got better.
Anyway, I looked it up when I got home. I'm guessing I have inflammation in the tensor fascia latae as a result of lots of biking and a change of running style, which have exhausted the gluteal muscles. Yesterday's sore lower back was a sign that something was about to go wrong. Ah well, knowledge is power. 2h30
Tuesday She's known here at work (where there is a steady supply of patients) as a miracle worker, a knight in shining armour, queen of pain (relief), but I just call my ART massage therapist the best. Thanks to her, I'm running pain-free tonight. The right TFL and hip area are a little bruised but otherwise I'd never guess that two days ago I was stopping every few minutes on my run to let the pain subside. Now if only I could find an equally effective remedy for feeling fat and heavy as I run. A few weeks ago someone posted a question on Slowtwitch about getting ready for his first Ironman, and I posted a reply that had all sorts of nice, lofty stuff about being committed to a training program because of the satisfaction (rather than committed to the event) and most of all respecting your body throughout the training season. And here I am going for chocolate bars, skipping supper, eating late at night, and gaining weight. Not happy.
One loop around Sunshine Gardens and I'm feeling a bit better about myself. I bought a copy of this month's issue of Yoga Journal a few days ago, and found a nice half-page about one of the most famous mantras used in yoga and meditation, Om Namah Shivaya. There's a short paragraph about the rough translation of the mantra: "I bow to the divine Consciousness within." There's an even better one from a website that first says that there's not even a rough translation of the mantra, but otherwise goes something like this: "Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming." I often meditate with that mantra and find that in moments of quiet, but I find it hard to put in practice as soon as I stop meditating. I just don't understand how to make it relevant to life in action. That doesn't stop me from running really well tonight. Up and over Marlborough Drive twice without any effort on the hills, across town along Woodstock Road and George Street, loop back to Northumberland going through downtown, and after 1h30 I feel refreshed.
Thursday Last night after my 1.5hr bike ride I went for a run. Just a short little run to get used to the transition after the bike. I started out from home so sure about how fluid and strong I would feel, and if you're a triathlete then you know the cold hard reality that hits you when you get off the bike and your legs tell you what they really think of this idea. I couldn't believe it, but I only lasted 15 minutes. And tonight was just as brutal. It was supposed to be a one hour tempo run. What it probably looked like to the people out walking was a slow shuffle. My legs were stiff and tired and completely resistant to the idea of going anything over "really, really slow" on my speed settings. There's not much you can do in times like these except go with what your body is telling you. I eventually did start speeding up, but it took about 35 minutes. 1hr
Saturday I totally overdress today. I was out earlier running errands and thought things felt kind of cool. Um, maybe that's because I was wearing capris and didn't have socks on. Still, it's 11 degrees and I dress up as if it's 5 degrees. My legs are still upset that they have to run after a bike workout (yesterday). I go through the first hour reminding myself that it's OK to slow down, finding the shortest stride that will make things easiest for me. I really struggle up Golf Club Road and I even walk twice. This is getting more and more frustrating. I find things get a bit better when I start using my hips a little more, extending the legs back almost from the waist. Where do I find inspiration? I remember some runs last year in the middle of summer; I'd pass through one of those hot spots on the trail, a short length where for whatever reason - foliage, angle of the sun, side of house - the heat seemed suddenly suffocating. And I'd think to myself, "Tough it out. Stay here, don't resist it. This is what race day might be like". That's what I do for the other one hour of this step-back week run. Just stay in the discomfort zone. 2h10.
Week of April 20
Wednesday A beautiful day yesterday meant switching bike rides and runs, so I'm out tonight on a very cool (2 degrees) and breezy evening. It took every ounce of effort to get out the door and go running this evening. I was late back from work and kept finding every excuse not to go out. But I remember one of my favourite Lance Armstrong/Nike ads, the one where he's being filmed while providing a blood sample for drug testing and he's saying that people keep asking him what he's on. He replies, "I'm on my bike, six hours a day. What are you on?" Effort now will pay off in Lake Placid. So I put on my shoes, step out, and surprise myself at how good I feel. Yesterday's bike ride - a hard 1.5 hour effort - didn't turn my legs to mush as I thought it would. Instead, my legs feel like they're effortless and they tell me that I can just relax while they do their thing. In the second half of the run as I start getting a little tired, I work at making sure my core and my hips stay engaged in each strip, rather than just stiffening and slumping. I can really tell the difference in speed and effort. I cross town, around Queen Square, and back through downtown. I'm a little tired and I'm surprised that my quadriceps are getting stiff after a 1.5 hour run. But I feel fit, and that's a good thing. 1.5h
Thursday I feel exhausted tonight. Deep down tired. I'm still out for my run, but that tempo run has again been switched to a 1.5hr moderate run. Toward the end of the run I decide to try the pedestrian bridge for the first time this year. The river has flooded considerably this week because of melting snow further up. I'm the only one on the bridge, and I enjoy the sound of my feet patting the boards. I can also hear the high water rushing around the bridge columns; it's unreal how loud that is and how strong it sounds. I marvel that we can design a bridge that, after such a long life, remains completely immobile and calm above the rush beneath it. 1.5hrs.
Week of April 27
Saturday Where have I been, you ask? In flu hell. Last week I finally succumbed to that horrific flu bug that has been going around since March. I probably had the virus for several weeks before symptoms went full blast; that would explain the fatigue since beginning Ironman training, and the constant just-under-the-radar congestion. And from the sounds of it, I think I'll be dealing with the after-effects for just as long.
I feel good enough to try a run today. It's a gorgeous day here, which makes the flooding situation all the more surreal. The first 30min are the toughest of the run: my eosaphagus is dry and burning, I'm a little dizzy, and my sinuses try clearing out again. I slow my pace down as much as possible until I'm just tipping over my toes and trotting forward. Around Sunshine Gardens and out along Woodstock Road on the path to seehow far I can go until water stops me. That's the end of Angelview Park. I turn around and cross town until I come to the pedestrian bridge. As I run across I can see how widespread the flooding is on the north side of the city. It's eerie to cross over Riverside Drive, normally one of the busiest streets in Fredericton, and not see a sign of life on it. It's barricaded because of the rising water; I feel like I'm in one of those movies about abandoned cities. Over the little bridge just beside the soccer field, and the water is actually flowing through the spans. Wow, that's amazing. A bird that looks like a huge black swan diving and resurfacing. I'm a little stiff but the coughing and sniffling have long since gone. Trot back home quietly. 2hrs.
Week of May 4
Tuesday Back in Ottawa for a short spell. It's an absolutely lovely evening here, so we head down toward the path along the Rideau River for an easy 13km run. I'm again surprised by how stiff I feel, the result of that flu that seems to be hanging around. We keep the pace easy and I enjoy looking around at the sunlight through the trees, the aura of gold and green. All is wonderful until we start going through cloud after cloud of the small flies that hang around over the path. Eventually the clouds become one continuous fog, so dense that we're running and coughing them up. We go for the street and keep heading south. Pass Lycée Claudel, pass a Riverside Campus, and out into a quiet, well-to-do neighbourhood. My body feels like it's into the third hour of a marathon. This is incredibly discouraging. On the way back, I start working on different ways to overcome the fatigue: looking up into the trees, more upright posture, listening to Numb by U2 in my head. It all helps, but I'm so grateful when we finally get home. 1h20
Thursday The rain clears out this afternoon and out I go for a tempo run. As with all previous tempo runs, this one gets downgraded when I assess my heartrate and legs and find them exhausted. I did a long, hard bike ride yesterday and discovered just how much power I had lost in my legs as a result of the flu. Now my heartrate is pounding and I'm in such bad shape I have to walk up long stretches of Golf Club Road. How am I ever going to recover and be fit enough for Lake Placid? This is scary.
Around Sunshine Gardens, then along the path to Golf Club Road. There's a gorgeous evening mist and late evening sunshine that makes this run feel peaceful. I huff and puff up Golf Club Road, and drastically reduce my pace at the top. It's the only way I'll manage to finish this run without my heart exploding in my chest. At the far end of the road, I stop for a while before heading back. The sound of frogs and all sorts of chirping surround me; I take a long few moments to let it all sink in. It's the brink of summer, of long lazy nights and easy moving, and you can just feel it everywhere. I love thinking of summer stretching ahead before me. I run back very slowly, and work a lot on technique: hitting the ground earlier with my foot, springing up my feet so that my heels kick up a little more. My hips are very, very stiff, which might be the main reason why running is so slow and tough.
There was a good article in the New York Times today about the triathlete's dilemma of trying to improve in three sports. The article looked at the physiology behind it and the evidence that improvement in one or two sports will always come at the cost of performance in the third. Running suffers the most because of the additional muscle built in the quadriceps and upper body as a result of cycling and swimming respectively. Swimming suffers because of the exhaustion from running and the impaired ability to kick as part of propulsion. Physiologically, the phenomenon is even more evidence that cross-training is not beneficial to one's primary sport (though this is one of those training myths that will never, ever die: people absolutely refuse to believe it). I know my running improves only when summer is over and I've cut back drastically on cycling. My cycling only peaks in early spring after months on the indoor bike trainer, but after the outdoor running season has ended in December. And I always suck at swimming.
The New York Times reporter who writes the story gives the impression that they wonder why triathletes would put up with diminished performance: why not just chose one sport and be the best in that? But the challenge of triathlon is to put the three together. Non-triathletes see triathlon as three separate sports: a swim, a bike, and a run. It's not. It's one holistic event, one challenge of mastery, and that's why people in it are Type A personalities with considerably more drive (for better or for worse) than in other sports. They understand that it's not about being the fastest swimmer, biker, or runner, but being the most accomplished athlete with an aptitude for continuously learning new things. There is so much to learn in triathlon - from the techniques involved in each sport to the minutiae and strategising in a race that go far beyond one-sport races - that you are a perpetual beginner, and with that status comes perpetual humility. So I guess there's a lot to be said for being in a sport where you can't be at your best. 1h20
Week of May 11
Sunday Cold weather yesterday and a much needed rest day meant that today was my long run and tomorrow will be my long bike. At swim practice this morning I spoke with another triathlete about my lingering flu, and after we compared symptoms he said that what I'd had was the same as what he had had a month earlier: walking pneumonia, so called because it's the mildest form of pneumonia and, if left untreated, won't disable a person. Not that I don't feel disabled these days. I have to walk up Golf Club Road, my 100m splits at swim practice have gone from 1:42 to 1:57, and I still spend hours a day napping. So it's going to be nice and easy for today's long run.
I'm actually pretty excited about the run because it's going to be my first on the Northside Trail this year. I'm so looking forward to the quiet of the trails. They're the closest thing to an escape from life when I can't travel or get on my bike. I keep the pace as easy as I can for the first half out to Penniac where the trail more or less ends. It's against the wind the whole way, and the going is pretty tough. For some strange reason, running against a strong wind always makes me short of breath, like I can't catch enough air as it whips by me. Down the long stretch after Greenwood Drive I see a disturbing sight in the middle of the path: a delicate leg of a deer, cut from its knee down, stuck in a hardened clump of mud, petite black hoof pointing skyward.
When the trail meets the road in Penniac I take a few minutes to rest and turn back. Soooo much easier now. I want to run faster but restrain myself. I have to stop and cough once in a while. I keep working on my footstrike, trying to snap up my heel quickly when it hits the ground. I read a good article in Triathlete magazine about high performance athletes. The article focuses on one guy's lifelong study of high performance athletes, and his conclusion that these athletes exhibit certain behaviours (as opposed to skills) that make them so good. While he's all for stuff like visualisation and relaxation techniques, he says that they're just problem-solving techniques. His theory is that high performance athletes - he calls them Level Six Performers, since they've reached the sixth or highest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualisation - have eleven behavioural traits that keep them at that sixth level. People in level one basically have self-defeating behaviours, mostly based on fear of failure. Their decisions are based on emotion. People at level six have gotten past that. They spend most of their time learning how to get better, rather than accepting what they know and their current level of performance. They're not satisfied with ignorance and they're largely thinkers who put a lot of effort into planning execution rather than just "hoping to finish". It's a good article if only for the fact that it does finally put a dent in the "mental skills are everything" argument. Sure Lance Armstrong uses visualisation, but that alone doesn't explain why he's so good at what he does and the mental skills articles used to always leave me wondering if those were the only things that separated the best from the average. 3h00
Tuesday A beautiful evening and I'm planning for a two hour run to make the most of it. The first 20 minutes, as usual, are tough: I'm short of breath and my legs feel dull. Going across the pedestrian bridge and against the tough northeast wind doesn't make things any fun. Even though this is supposed to be a long easy run, I make sure my foot turnover is high and that I'm not slacking off. That reminds me of another good article in Triathlete this month about different ways to gauge training: power (or watts, if you're on a bike), heartrate, blood lactate, and rate of perceived exertion. As anyone who reads these pages knows, I'm a big fan of RPE, but I never thought it was the best of of all the different methods. The main reason why I think RPE works for me is that it requires me to pay attention to how I feel and to stress efficiency and form - getting greater speed with the same effort through better technique. But I also use RPE because I don't have anything to measure power or blood lactate, and I hate being a slave to my heartrate monitor when I run. Well, the article talks about research that shows that RPE is actually the most effective way to improve speed for the reasons I mention above: paying attention to how we run and emphasising efficiency. (And one of the characteristics of elite runners over newbies or eternal slow-mos: elite runners prefer to run without iPods or mp3 players since they want to pay attention to their bodies. Slow runners and new runners prefer to be distracted from the pain of running, so their form deteriorates as a consequence.)
I turn around at the field past Bridge Street. Woohoo! Tailwind! It's also getting pretty dark. I pick up the pace and move into a tempo run. Since the wind is no longer going over my ears in a roar, I enjoy the quiet and the sound of fast pattering on gravel. There are brief periods where I make a point of just listening to birds or frogs in the fields. It takes over an hour for my hips to loosen up and to run as I do in the fall when all the cycling is over. 2h00
Thursday Wow, what a beautiful evening. The northeast wind that has been blowing through here in the past few days has finally left, and now it really feels like a calm, gorgeous summer evening. I go around Sunshine Gardens and at 15 minutes start to pick up the pace into a tempo. It's not much of a tempo, but I'm proud that I haven't mentally quit trying to run faster. I zip along on the path to Golf Club Road and start shuffling uphill. It's not great, but it's definitely not as bad as last week: I can climb the entire hill without resorting to a walk, and have the strength to go back to tempo pace when I'm at the top. I'm focusing on hills this evening to work on technique, trying to power up the hill with a proper stride and increase foot turnover on the downhills. The foot turnover thing is much harder than I thought it would be, although I know right away when I get it right. I'm trying to get my foot to go straight down once it's finished its upward pull, and then propulse it back so that the heel kicks out back a little more. I can really tell the difference when it's all going well. On the way back from the far end of Golf Club Road I start tiring a little. I push up my posture and feel better. Looking across the river as I go by the golf course is beautiful: I can see the bridge, the river, all the trees in every shade of luminscent green. I feel pretty lucky to be out running. 1h15
Saturday A bit cool and later windy, and I can't believe I'm wearing long tights and carrying gloves on a run in the middle of May. It hasn't rained in a few days, so I start with two loops in Odell Park since the trails will be dry. As I'm padding along on the trails with the park to myself I realise how much I've missed running here. I'm a little heavy up the hills, nowhere near as light and nimble as last year, but I keep reminding myself that my memories of last year are all based on my peak fitness just before and after Ironman Canada. I'm still a couple of weeks away from that. Back down toward the river and into a really strong headwind. I'm so glad I'm not on my bike today. Cross the pedestrian bridge and take a bit of water, then off on the Northside Trail. It's Saturday, so of course the entire population of Fredericton is at the malls and the trails are abandoned. It's getting easier and easier to run peacefully. I think my mind is getting used to doing so many long runs on a regular basis so this state is easier to achieve than in winter, especially since I don't have to worry about snow or ice. Every once in a while I listen to U2's Bad in my head, and my focus stays for quite a while. Past Bridge Street I find I'm getting tired and finally I turn around when I get truly sick of running into the wind. My butt is tired from the earlier climbing and from yesterday's hard bike ride. Surprisingly I'm not hungry at all. My pace is steady but I'm tiring. Sigh, I wish I was in as good a shape as I was last year at this time. 3h30
Week of May 18
Tuesday A busy day; I am flying to Ottawa this evening and trying to think of how I'll squeeze in my long run. I finally leave work early and head for the trails at lunch time. I feel so light and upright, so very runner-like. It takes me a while to figure out that it's just the effect of running without the extra few pounds of the Fuel Belt that I normally carry on my long runs. That light feeling combined with "woohoo-out-of-work-early!" excitement and thrill of running on a weekday afternoon means I'm running joyously, relishing every moment of this freedom. My feet are quick on the ground and the fantastic Hothouse Flowers' song, Movies, is in my head: "When you were young and easy/ Like to take the day off /...
When you were young and easy
did you like to take the day off
run in the sun and the breeze
nothing to think of
Do you run to the silence
Do you hide in the dark
Do you like to go walking
Alone in the city
Do the soft things hurt you
have you got something to lose
because it's only water
You've got to let it flow through
Get on up into the groove
I rediscovered this song earlier this year when I found an old CD I had burned a few years ago. There's a great sense of movement to the song, so much energy yet all of it pushing you out and ahead. And today I do feel young and easy, taking the day off to run in the sun and the breeze. Dandelions are out and the Northside Trail has a carpet of yellow on either side. One of the reasons I might be running so well is because of swim practice this morning. I haven't solved the mystery of why I run better after a swim workout, but for now I'll just enjoy the effects. 1h45
Thursday Good thing I did that long run on Tuesday afternoon instead of Tuesday evening after I arrived in Ottawa. I arrived, but my bags didn't. I actually don't blame Air Canada anymore: the only times I lose my bags are when I fly through Toronto. As a matter of fact, I have flown through Toronto three times in the past year (and countless times through Montreal), and every single time my bags have not made it within 24 hours of my arrival. When I mentioned this to a colleague, she said the same thing: she had only flown once through Toronto, and sure enough her luggage did not arrive with her.
My sweetie is doing a four mile tempo run tonight and I tag along. I have a terrible secret to admit: I hate running with my sweetie. A Type A personality like me combined with a "Hey, let's just get out there and run" personality do not mix. Within a minute of starting, my sweetie takes off in his tempo pace. Type A personality/research-obsessed me begins to freak out. What?! No warm-up?! This is bad, this is very bad. I don't like not warming up, I don't like not having a plan for my run, I don't like picking routes that have lots of people on them. I might eschew gadgets but that doesn't mean I don't want precision in my run. So sure enough, within 15 minutes of starting, I roll my left ankle. The last time I rolled my ankle was also running with my sweetie when he decided to take us on an icy, jagged path that I would never, ever have considered running on. Anyway, I hobble around and let my ankle recover and finish the run on my own. I keep going up along the Rideau River and as I near one of the bus hubs I realise I really don't like this path. I like running along the Ottawa River and Sussex Drive, where there might be a lot of cars but the open spaces and absence of people make me more comfortable. I cross under the bridge at St. Patrick, stay on the path until it becomes Stanley Street, and find myself relaxing more and more as I see fewer and fewer people. Much better. To my left there's a massive black rain cloud over the city; to my right it's clear and blue. It rained earlier and all I can hear now are my feet patting the wet pavement. Just like Tuesday, I feel light on my feet. Up to Sussex, turn left, and enjoy the slight incline all the way to Rideau. 1h30
Friday A gorgeous, breezy afternoon in Ottawa. I overdress a little and start out down the path along the Rideau River to go to Sussex Drive. I feel awful when I start: heavy, tired, stiff, and a little out of it. I have a quick pace even though I walked a lot this morning on my way to the pool and then did quite a grueling workout. I really feel like running along the Rideau Canal, so up along Sussex to the park behind the Chateau Laurier, around in circles a bit until I find the stairs down to the canal on the other side of the bridge, and I'm finally running up the canal. It's very crowded, but so beautiful. Everything has that lush, blooming green to it, tulips are still going strong, lilacs are blooming, cherry blossoms...I try the path along on of the smaller canals that turns into a dead end, then come back and keep going to Dow's Lake Pavillion until the headwind becomes too much. I find a water fountain, then turn around to head home. I have to slow down a bit now; I'm paying for having gone out so quickly in the first hour. And after Landsdowne Park the wind is back in my face so I tire even more quickly. I basically retrace my steps all the way back. 2h20
Saturday I'm terrified of going running today; yesterday was pretty tough and it took all day today to loosen up and feel half-decent. My ankles feel incredibly stiff, which is unusual. It's late afternoon, however, and it's another beautiful, warm day so of course I want to make the most of it and be out running. I start very gingerly toward Rockcliffe and I'm surprised with how much energy I have. Running through Rockcliffe on Birch is sublime; gosh, is this part of town ever gorgeous. At Sandridge I pick up the path that goes down to the Ottawa River, where I find the Ottawa River trail that hugs the bank. Ah, trail....It's so nice to hear the crunch of gravel under my feet and to not worry about baby strollers and rollerbladers. I keep the pace very, very slow and relax with the tailwind at my back. I really don't want to finish as exhausted as I was yesterday. I find it easy to run with a clear head today, and I use that to imagine I'm in the marathon part of Ironman Lake Placid. I need to get used to running in a state of exhaustion and finding those thoughts that will get me through it. At the one hour point in my run, about six kilometres down the trail, I turn around and face the headwind home. It's not so bad for the first little while. In the last kilometre before I turn up the hill to go up toward Sandridge the wind is really howling and I have to stop to catch my breath. Obviously I haven't found that magical thought that will get me through wind. I walk slowly up to the Aviation Parkway to recover, then trot along Birch and back home, stopping every once in a while to smell the lilacs. 2h00
Week of May 25
Tuesday I can't believe how bad I feel when I start running tonight. My left hamstring is pulled, my left foot aches in the fascia, I have a stitch, and I feel like I'm hitting the ground hard. This is so incredibly discouraging; so many runs in a row that are not going well. I huff down to the pedestrian bridge and across to the Northside Trail. The section of the trail right after the bridge around the trail cabin has been paved. That's great news for my bike, since I come back this way after some of my rides to cross the bridge, but I sincerely hope the city never paves the remaining trails. Somehow I would miss the lovely crunch of gravel beneath my feet, the coolness in the summer when heat reflects from pavement but doesn't do the same to gravel, and I definitely don't want to share the trail with rollerbladers. I slow down my pace as much as possible to get comfortable. It's a really nice time to be running, and I go out to the field by the river in Marysville and stop for quite a while to look at the scenery. Things are a bit better coming back home. 1h30
Thursday The windy, cool weather continues and I've got my fleece and gloves on. Hey, at least it's not raining, although it's not looking good for the weekend. Tonight is my first "speed" run of the year. I think my speed runs were supposed to start earlier, but I was feeling so bad that I skipped them. The awesome soundtrack from Last of the Mohicans is playing in my head. It's grand, sweeping music that makes you feel like you're a hero in your own movie. I start with 15 minutes of very, very easy running down to the Delta, back to Woodstock Road since the trail is closed around the well, and to the rowing club to get back on the trail. Then it's on to 3x10 minutes with three minutes rest, which is probably too much rest. The first 10 minute interval is the worst. My legs feel so stiff, as if I can only run in one narrow plane and I have no flexibility to swing arms and legs fluidly around my centre. The second interval starts while I'm crossing the pedestrian bridge. I fade toward the end, but in the last interval I'm feeling much stronger and looser. Running on the wood deck of the bridge does wonders for making me feel great. 1hr
Week of June 1
Monday Every year, I forget how wet June is in the Maritimes. We always picture it as the first month of summer, the time when the thermometer finally stays in the double digits. It does, but the sun takes a holiday. So no long run on Saturday when the heavens opened up and poured; a long bike ride yesterday with an hour in pouring rain, and a long run shuffled to tonight. I was convinced tonight's run would be painful. I had been dreading it all day long. After all, I had done 6.5 hours on the bike yesterday, followed by an amazing 30min brick run, so surely my legs would be dead.
Nope. I huffed and puffed for a bit at the start of the run - after all, I was loaded down with gels and a Fuel Belt - but that was it. Otherwise it was smooth cruising. I went around Sunshine Gardens to warm up and high-fived the other Ironman Lake Placid person out running this evening; then over to Golf Club Road to get in as many hills as I could, including the killer Riverview Court, and finally down to the Delta and across the river for another two hours on the flat. I was running without my orthotics, testing the idea that maybe the adidas Adistar overcorrect my pronation when I have the orthotics in them. That seemed to be going well, but I was getting blisters in the last hour. I've never had a year with so many blister problems. What was most surprising was how little food I needed: one gel. That's it. Quite the change from the previous years' pattern of four or five gels on a long run.
In the last hour I started picking up the pace just a little. I figured I was getting off lucky this evening because the temperature was cooling and workouts are always so much easier when it's cool. Even so, I had overdressed quite a bit. Maybe it was the music: The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack is pretty stirring stuff. Whatever it was, it made for a great run. 3h30min
Wednesday The day's steady rain finally tapers off and ends late this evening and I go out for my speed run. I feel really good when I start, and all through the run my legs have the strong, solid feel to them, like they're really fit and muscled. The best part of the evening is its serenity: everyone's gone, the trails are empty, and there's no wind. It's that time after the rain when everything is still, and in June that's quite something. I run through Wilmot Park and delight at all the purple lilac trees and flowering pink shrubs in bloom, then go down to the river to do my 4x8min with 2min rest. The first one goes well and I fade a little on the second and third. When I cross the pedestrian bridge I look at the trees on the north bank and their perfect and soft reflections in the water. I keep running past Devon Lumber and everything keeps that soft, lush look. On the last 8min I've got things together: I'm working on my form, making sure I get my feet snapping down to the ground, and I'm running tall and firm. I definitely have a strength that I didn't have a few weeks ago. 1hr
Thursday I went for a run right after swim practice this morning. It was a glorious, sunny morning when I woke up and went to the pool. An hour later when I stepped out of the gym with my sunglasses in hand, it was grey and 10 degrees Celsius. I had so been looking forward to running on sunny trails this morning. However, it was the dangerous time of the day known as BC: Before Coffee. Very bad time. I did an easy one hour run and was impressed that I could even do that, especially since I had run hard last night. It was nice not to have the pressure to run fast or even long, but to just keep a steady quiet pace and quick foot turnover. 1hr
Saturday It's a hot one in Ottawa: the humidex is at 34 degrees Celsius and the wind isn't cooling much. I'm not exactly looking forward to the pain that this run is going to bring, but then again, why else do I do this sport if not to learn to deal with pain and fear? I start very, very quietly down Beechwood and spend the first 40 minutes of the run trotting around gorgeous Rockcliffe. It's shady so I don't feel the heat too much, and some of the trails are so beautiful that I don't think very much about running. Down to the path along the Ottawa River and simultaneously enjoy the massive tailwind while I have it and dread returning against it later on. I take an exit that goes back up to the road and around the Rockcliffe Airport. Things go fairly well until I start climbing the long hill toward CFB Ottawa. That wind is still at my back and creating a vacuum in front of me, so I'm breathing hot, still air. The heat is starting to get to me, especially when I loop around the military base. I can feel my head swell a little. So at the halfway point I take a few minutes to walk slowly and drink a bit. I'm a little scared of heat stroke. Back down through the military base and along the path. Holy cow, it's hot! I remember my long runs last year and how I used to tell myself to stay in the heat when I ran through an excessively hot area. The idea was to not give in to the temptation to escape or get frustrated at external conditions.
At the Aviation Museum I trot in to reload water bottles and dunk my head under a tap of cold running water. Ahh, relief! Not for long: the water evaporates and I'm running along the dreaded road to the even more dreaded pathway along the river. It's a struggle to get home and I have to stop a few times. 3h15
Week of June 8
Tuesday Ottawa again! And boy is it ever humid here. I have a long easy run tonight, which I start pretty late with my sweetie for the first two miles and then have to myself for the remaining hour or so. We go down to Sussex and trot along that for a while. Once I'm on my own I keep going up to Rideau Street, feeling pretty good up the incline and dodging tourists in front of the Chateau Laurier. I dodge tourists until I finally pass by Parliament. After that, the wide smooth sidewalk invites me along. I follow it all the way across the bridge, into Gatineau, and up to the Museum of Civilization. I'm surprised at how good I feel. I'm a little banged up from a bad bike crash on Sunday. I hit the ground pretty hard after misjudging a wood bridge; my left side is scratched and bruised, but eventually the pain fades in my left hip. I turn around at the museum and climb the long, gentle hill back up Wellington. The last 30 minutes are at a really good pace. 1h30
Thursday Things haven't cooled off a whole lot, and I've decided to add a light sweater tonight for some extra heat. The extra layering does really make a difference: when I take off that extra layer on a hot day, dealing with the heat is so much easier. This evening I'm running in Gatineau Park, starting from the Asticou Centre and picking up the trail along the parkway. My workout is 3x8min tempo followed by 3x4min. I kill myself trying to do the 3x8min on two minutes of rest and feel so horrid that I drop the four minute intervals. But the scenery is awesome and the trails are so quiet. 1hr.
Saturday Today is the mother of all runs: my four hour long run. It kind of snuck up on me; I hadn't realised that the four hour run was this weekend until I checked my workout schedule in the morning. Thank goodness the weather isn't like last weekend. The humidity is incredibly high - my forearms are dripping sweat in the first 20 minutes of the run - but the sun is hidden behind high light clouds and there's just a tiny bit of a breeze. I do the first 90 minutes in Rockcliffe Park, trying to figure out the maze of roads and how things all fit together. I run by Rideau Park, by all sorts of embassies, along Acacia Street, and the lovely paths (especially the one with the water fountain!) I pop out at the top of Rockcliffe Parkway and go down to the Ottawa River path. At the Royal Yacht Club I stop at the vending machine for a Pepsi, and then on for another 30 minutes. Going back home is pretty much the reverse of all that. I'm impressed that I never hit any stiffness or discouragement, and that staying hydrated and disciplined aren't too challenging. 4hrs.
Week of June 15
Tuesday Hello from Whitehorse! That's right, nowhere close to Ottawa and a whole lot sunnier since we're close to the summer equinox and it doesn't actually get dark at night. I start out early for my run - 5h45 - and trot down 4th Avenue toward the river. I usually hate running in the morning because all I can think of at this point of the day is food and coffee. But things are going well and I don't feel to sluggish (thank goodness for jet lag!) At the roundabout at the end of downtown I pick up the trail along the river. It reminds me of running in Banff last October: the sweeping scenery and ethereal colour of the river evoke something grand in us, no matter what time of the day it is. Around a little campground on the edge of town, across a bridge near the dam, and a stop at the end of the road to gaze at Montana Mountain in the distance. For a while I just shut down all my thinking and just run. I mean REALLY run. The tailwind on the way back pushes my foot turnover higher and I just go for it. 1h15
Wednesday It's not quite as nice as yesterday morning, but who's complaining when you get to run by wide rivers and gaze at massive mountains in the distance? I'm also not as fast as yesterday; for some strange reason, my core is really tired and it's hard to get my legs to run steady when they don't have those central muscles to brace them. I go down to the river rather than running across Whitehorse on 4th Avenue. I'm looking for the trail along the river. It only starts at the little train station. I follow it to the roundabout at the far end of downtown, then do more or less the same route I did yesterday. Out of town along the river, by the little campground, and out to the bridge in front of the damn. I struggle a bit on the hill - I really haven't done enough hills this season - and pause at the end of the road to look at Montana Mountain in the distance. I shoulda brought my camera. Back to town, this time with a little tailwind that lets me pick up speed. 1h10
Friday Back in Ottawa and exhausted from an overnight flight. I did get a great swim workout in, and the combination of swimming and exhaustion work a special magic on my run tonight. I go down to Sussex, which feels so removed from the city, to Wellington, back down to the other bridge, and through Gatineau. Wow, does running ever feel great tonight. It's easy to find that groove, to listen to Bad in my head and just run. I wonder if I'm running so well because I have time to myself. Solitude lets us drop the mask of who we would like to be with people, and sometimes we don't realise just how much energy it takes to carry that mask. On the other hand, I don't think life has a whole lot of usefulness when it's spent in isolation. The next cliche is that it's all about balancing the two, but that's trite. For the hundreds of times we say that to ourselves in our lifetime, we still don't do much in terms of finding that balance or using it properly. I ponder that on my way to the Alexandra Bridge and across it. It's really lovely to see the city from this point of view. Back along Sussex and home. 1h10
Week of June 22
Sunday It's a warm, muggy afternoon and I'm doing a short long run, if that makes sense. I have the week off leading up to the Tinman Half-Ironman in Tupper Lake, so I'm figuring that a good way to use all this time is to run more frequently but shorten my longest runs. The risk in doing this is that I tend to get injured more frequently, and today I'm dealing with an Achilles tendonitis issue that just isn't going away. The first 50min are with my sweetie and we brave the crowds along the Rideau Canal. Once I'm on my own I do some exploring off of Queen Elizabeth Drive. In the last half I suddenly get maddeningly hungry and my pace drops off. I really didn't see this coming, but now that I think about it, blood sugar swings are pretty typical of my biggest weeks of Ironman training. All those gels and energy drinks! 2h00
Monday Today's rain clears out late in the afternoon and by the time I've started my run the sky is a clear blue, the air is still, and everything is sparkling. I trot around Rockcliffe for a while. Climbing Acacia is easier than I thought, given that I haven't been doing a lot of hills lately. I love how quiet everything is when I'm running through Rockcliffe. For a little while I can forget that I'm in a city. I find my way down to Sussex and turn east, picking up the path through Rockcliffe Park. This is one of those runs that just gets better and better. Sun is flashing of wet leaves and I'm dazzled by what I see. I stay on the path all the way until the Aviation Museum. A man whizzes by on a bicycle and I notice that he's wearing his backpack on the front. When he's passing me I see a cat's had sticking out of the top of the backpack, and the cat looks like he's having a good time. Turn around at the museum and pick up the pace a bit. I'm still working on getting an earlier footstrike. Just before starting today's run I was looking at the soles of my running shoes and I noticed that they were worn out along the outside front. That's a change from previous years when I was more of a mid-foot striker, but the switch to running of the front of my feet might also explain why I have calf muscle tenderness and Achilles tendonitis. Anyway, I climb up the Parkway, pick up Acacia at the top of the hill, and head home. 1h30
Thursday I'm in Lake Placid today, but not for Ironman...yet. I'm doing the Tinman Half-Ironman in nearby (45 minutes away) Tupper Lake, and when I signed up for Tupper Lake I figured the best thing to do would be to stay in Lake Placid to train on the course. Which is what I'm doing for today's long run. I was actually going to do a shorter 3hr run but opted instead for the full 4hrs that are scheduled for Saturday. And tomorrow I'll do the full (180km) bike course. Then a day off, then a half-Ironman. How's that for crazy?
The forecast called for rain today. It was kinda grey when I started from the cottage on Elm Street and took Wesvalley over to Cummins, climbed Cummins, then picked up Mirror Lake Drive to start on the course. I couldn't believe how good I felt. A nice, easy, relaxed stride and running very upright. I had put on my green fleece to get used to the heat and started to find it really humid since there was no wind and things seemed to be warming up more than forecasted. Turned around at the intersection with Northwood, trotted down Main Street and onto Route 73. I loved running by the huge horse show going on at the Lake Placid Horse Show Grounds. When I crossed the bridge at the bottom of the hill I turned onto River Drive. I was really looking forward to this part: it had been some of the most beautiful running I had ever done when I had been here in 2005, and the memory of the sun setting over the potato fields and the great big red barn was still with me. The sun was almost kinda poking through the overcast sky now. It was humid; when I stopped a little later to fix up my socks, the water wasn't just dripping down my arms and legs, it was running. Past the red barn and enjoying this incredible silence. I was starting to feel so, so happy. The road was winding along the river and I felt like I was running in my own little world. Turn around as close to what I thought the turn-around point was, then back to Route 73.
The first of the two big hills on the course wasn't so bad. I could actually run up all of it. It seemed like a long way to the next hill and there was a lot of traffic. But that big hill in town...well, I had to walk it. I couldn't believe how steep it was. I just didn't remember it that way. And the temperature was really hot by now. I finally picked things up at the lights and went over to Mirror Lake Drive again, turning at Northwood and then going through town. This time I had to stop for a Coke at the little convenience store. My mind was set on doing the hills again, and going back up the bottom one just about killed me. The happy times were over. The fleece came off - it was soaked right through and I could wring out the water from the sleeves - and I got ready for the second hill. Which I walked. Back up to Cummins, down to Wesvalley, and I even had to walk one of the hills at on Wesvalley less than a mile from the cottage. Boy was I ever in rough shape at this point. And I hadn't even done a 180km bike ride before this. 4hrs
Week of June 29
Sunday The Tinman Half-Ironman Race Report, Tupper Lake, New York
I have never not wanted to do a triathlon so badly. Last night my sweetie and I went to Pizza Hut, my favourite place for my pre-race supper. We sat by the window and watched as sheets of rain poured from the sky and cars crawled by with their wipers swishing madly. I moaned on and on about the weather until finally my sweetie sat back and said, "Look, you might as well accept it. You're going to get wet. Just get used to the idea." Which was all entirely true, but I had also done a four hour run on Thursday and then biked the Ironman bike course on Friday, an exercise in pain and torture that didn't make me too keen to get back on the bike anytime soon. I've just reached the point in this year's training where the idea of coming up to my physical limits and enduring the pain that comes with being there has lost all appeal.
I was getting my stuff ready afterward and found my race belt with my Ironman Canada number still pinned to it. When I took it off, I saw that I had written "Remember what's important" on the back. Ultimately, that was the whole point of doing this: to remember those things and moments that are important to us. And I wrote it again on my Tinman number. My sweetie saw it and asked me what it was that was going to be important, but how do you answer that question without feeling foolish? How do you say that what's important is a little cat leaning against your leg, tail quivering in delight, and looking up atyou like you're the most important thing in the universe? Or that what's important is hearing the hum of your bike's tires on the road when you're going fast and you know you're in the best shape of your life? Or that what's important is lap after steady lap in a pool all by yourself, listening to the water move over your head?
The morning of the race we drive the 45 minutes to Tupper Lake and get there with lots of time to park and set up transition. I pull out my iPod and plug in to Enya and Caribbean Blue as I set up. Then I spend the rest of the time hanging out with my sweetie and dreading the start. I'm in the fourth wave and things are organised really well: the older people are starting in waves behind me, so I don't have to worry about crazed 30-39 year old men trying to pass me on the bike, and we're even in corrals. I had warmed up a little in the water and when we started it didn't even seem as if I was in the start of a triathlon. I just knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing and focused right away on that. It was really quite strange, a way of starting that I had never experienced before. It took a while for me to remember the new things I had learned about swimming this year. But quite early in the course I started to bump up against way too many people. I had started too far back in the pack and now I had to really fight to get through the slow swimmers. We only had one buoy to turn around since the course was a V. I lined things up perfectly and found some feet to draft off after that, but then I was on my own. I got into a rhythm and every once in a while when I was breathing I would glance at the sky and notice that the ceiling was very thing. Hey, maybe it wouldn't rain after all. I thought of what I had found on my Ironman Canada bib number. This moment is what is important. Moments are like pearls, each one a full and perfect thing when each sense savours it. Put the moments together, one after another, and you get pearls on a string.
Then, oddly, things got really rough: I was getting clobbered in all directions and these guys weren't giving up any ground. What had happened was that I had left the slower pack of swimmers behind just before the turn-around and then I had caught up with the faster ones. I got slammed in the head, thought my nose would break when someone caught my goggles, felt my arm going into the vice of someone's kick, and finally trudged out of the water very slowly in a disappointing 38 minutes. Well, I was disappointed until I checked the results after the race: that put me 12th out of 33 women in my age group, and a phenomenal (for me) 241st out of 850 competitors. In fact, I got out of the water 30 seconds behind the woman who eventually won my age group. Hey, it's worth being my own swim coach and putting lots of time into it!
Of course, I didn't know this as I trotted over to my bike. I was just disappointed with myself. It was just nice to see that all the bikes around me - all men my age - were still racked, and I was the first heading out. Well, until I got stopped just before exiting transition because the police wanted to let traffic through. They let truck after truck go by while a pack of us waited two minutes or so. And they weren't even apologetic, just gruff and angry with us! Finally we were let loose. A pack of cyclists clicked across the road in our cleats, clambered on our bikes, and started out. Within seconds people were whooshing by me. Within minutes we were climbing a monster of a hill and people were going by me even faster. this was awful! I felt like one of those really new triathletes who are miles and miles behind everyone else on the day of the race. And if the first hill of the day was this hard, then what in the world were the others going to be like? My butt was already complaining about more biking after Friday's huge ride, my quads were burning...it just wasn't good. So when we got to the top of the hill I reached for a bit of food - I had decided to put my gels in a GU container - and discovered that Clifshots don't mix with water and get gummed up in the GU containers. Which meant I was out of food until the end of the race.
So things weren't going so well. I was getting passed all the time, I was hungry, and it was still overcast. But the course began to flatten a little as it left the Adirondacks. And the headwind picked up. And a funny thing happens to me when I'm biking in headwinds on flat ground: I get really fast. I started picking people off, passing them decisively, tuning in to my song, thinking of this moment and finding my rhythm again. Before the turn around the sun came out. Then it was back to Tupper Lake with a tailwind, and I was really moving now. I was passing people who looked so much faster and stronger than me. I was also damn hungry and couldn't wait to get back to transition to find food. As we got back into the hills I found that I wasn't getting passed as often as before in them. I would slow down quite a bit at the foot of the hill, get passed, then catch up to everyone in the top third of the hill. But everyone passed me again going downhill when I'd recover and they'd start pushing hard. When we got back to Tupper Lake I forgot to get ready for transition and hobbled off my bike with only one shoe still in the pedals.
I was tired right away on the run. The sun was out for good now, and the heat was intense. We started along the lake then turned into a residential area that climbed and climbed and climbed. I was surprised at how many people were passing me; this was unusual on the run, which is usually my strongest sport. Were these people really strong runners, or were they going too hard? I had to hope it was the latter. We climbed for about two miles and the course went on to the main route to Saranac Lake. Finally a forgiving downhill, a flat stretch where I started to feel a bit better, and another hill where I swallowed my pride and walked. It just didn't make sense to run up hills in this heat: walking wasn't much slower than running and it gave me an opportunity to recover a bit. Around Mile 3 or 4 the course veered to the left and headed into a rural area. It was the kind of area that I loved: fields and flowers everywhere, quiet with a bit of wind to make the leaves rustle. Hothouse Flowers' song was coming back to me: When you were young and easy / Like to take the day off / Run in the sun and the fields / Nothing to think of... I was smiling. Things were good. As Lisa Bentley puts it, I was running from my happy place and finally passing people (a lot of them, actually; they really had started too fast). I kept that up for most of the run, but towards the last third I found that the course - a wacky blend of trail, sand, subdivisions, industrial area, and no mile markers - started to get to me. At one point I was running with a group of women and when we popped out of a forest into a residential area, I wondered out loud where in the world we were. I hadn't seen a mile marker since Mile 6. I had no idea how much time or distance I had left so I couldn't pace myself. My arms and back were burning and I was so hungry that I was gulping down Gatorade at every aid station to stop my stomach from growling. When I finally did cross the finish line I ws sure I was about to spontaneously combust.
Results
SWIM 38:48 RANK: 241 out of 850, 12 out of 33 W35-39, Pace of 2:02/100m (Based on everyone's results, I'd say the swim was well over 1.9km)
BIKE 3:04:49 RANK: 352 out of 850, 13 out of W35-39, pace of 18.2mph
RUN 2:10:55 RANK: 265 out of 850, 13 out of W35-39, pace of 10min/mile (the run was 13.4 miles)
OVERALL 6:00 269th
Lessons Learned
I did a whole lot better than I had expected when I look at my rank after each sport. And my mistakes - not having enough food - turned out to be good things. But it was too late in the season for me to really enjoy this race.
- Pacing - but not the kind triathletes think of. I remember a former boss once asking me how I dealt with pre-race nerves: did I become a chatty person? Did I get really quiet? Actually, I pace back and forth. It's a very slow, deliberate pacing, but it makes the world of difference in keeping me calm.
- Warm up before the swim. I always underestimate how much good this does me.
- Don't eat in the three hours before the race. It's easier to race hungry than it is to race full.
- There is a reason why we do this, a One Thing, as Rich Strauss writes, and you don't have to know that reason before you get started. It will come to you.
Thursday It was really nice today, and I just happened to start running about five minutes before our only shower of the day. And what a shower it was: one of those flat out, drenching summer downpours that has you soaked in minutes. It was a hot evening and the smell of the water on the pavement was so very summery. I was surprised at how good I felt this evening: nice long loose stride that felt strong, and zipping up Golf Club Road without any problems. Around 15 minutes I moved into a tempo pace and didn't have a hard time staying there. When the rain started I felt a bit like a kid let loose by their parents to play outside. I spent the last quarter of the run with squishy shoes and running through large puddles on the path back to Smythe Street. 1hr
Saturday It's my "long" run today, "long" as in 2hr15. I scoff at the time, which of course is a mistake. It's a beautfiul hot day, I'm used to four hours, this is going to be nice and refreshing. So I listen to my IMLP playlist on my iPod and start with two loops around Odell Park. I'm running in the afternoon on a gorgeous day in one of the nicest parts of Fredericton, and the area is deserted! Everyone is at the malls. Oh well, I get the trails and stillness all to myself. The air smells sweet and I feel pretty good. I can't believe how quiet the park is; there's no wind, no movement anywhere except me padding along on the trails. I try to take in every sight and sound, repeating the phrase that I'm growing fond of, "moments are like pearls on a string. Look for the pearls." I'm running in an older pair of adidas Supernova since the other shoes have yet to dry out from Thursday's run. I've got my orthotics on for the first time in a while and my feet are really liking that.
Back down to Rookwood Avenue and then to the Green, where I cross over to the pedestrian bridge. Hm, things are not so easy now. The sun is extremely hot and I'm extremely hungry. As I run I start feeling light-headed and my stomach starts growling. These days I do get hungry quite a bit but don't have an appetite (classic overtraining symptoms!) so I had started this run without as much food as I usually eat on Saturdays. About a kilometre after the pedestrian bridge I decide to turn back for home. I have to walk for a while and get my head sorted out. So much for scoffing at two hours! 2hrs
Week of July 6
Thursday My taper is getting scheduled according to the weather. I took some time off this week, although I've been running 30 minutes after every bike ride. Last year all of those transition runs really paid off at Ironman Canada. This year the marathon at Lake Placid is going to be even more important given how darn hard the bike course is. Anyways, tonight is absolutely gorgeous. A little windy, but clear and sunny. I know right away that I want to go running on the Northside Trail. I'm surprised at how heavy and tired my legs feel even though I haven't run all that much. I did do a solid 2h15 bike tempo last night followed by a run, but I should have been able to recover from that. The fatigue goes away after 30 minutes or so. By then I'm on one of my favourite stretches of the trail after crossing Greenwood Drive.
I don't have a song playing with me this evening. Instead, I'm thinking about why I do this to myself. The Tinman race two weeks ago, combined with other stuff that has happened since then, was a new perspective on why I race. Not just train or run every day without signing up for something, but actually put myself through the nerves and pain and possible failure of a competition. Every day is a pursuit of that question. I haven't answered it yet, but I have found the benefits - most of them unsought and unknown before beginning this sort of thing - in the mindset that I've developed. A colleague at work remarked that I didn't seem to let obstacles deter me. Sure, they bother and aggravate me as much as anyone else, but they didn't stop me from trying to solve them. I thought that was interesting since I don't see that side of myself. It's just one of those things you take for granted: when face with a major issue, of course you're going to try to solve it because the result is worth it and because not doing so is simply inconceivable. The colleague's remark was puzzling, mostly because I figured everyone is like me. Everyone else pushes against that wall of an obstacle until it yields or until they find another way to get what they want and to get out of the status quo. But apparently that's not so, and I credit racing with this difference. I fork over a small fortune to show up to a race and, regardless of the butterflies in my stomach and the fear that overwhelms me when I first put my face in the water at the start of the swim, I'm going to go through with it. It's a safe risk: it's going to hurt, there's the possibility of failing, there's a very good possibility of humiliation in front of friends and strangers, but if 2200 other people are going ahead and doing this, then how can I not? And compared to other risks in life, this is safe. I won't end up homeless, lose my job, or have someone close die. So on a small scale, I'm learning to just keep going, and somewhere along the way that has become my mindset. I'd say it's worth that small fortune that Ironman Lake Placid race directors are getting from me.
I'm doing pretty well by the time I get to the edge of the fields in Marysville. I stop here for a while because I love the sight of the sun going down behind the trees on the other side of the river. It's so peaceful that it's almost surreal. I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone at all on the trails. On my way back I pick up the pace a little, making sure I've got a good foot turnover and short stride with my foot hitting the ground early. Tapering is a time to focus almost exclusively on perfecting technique so that on race day everything is natural; the body's most recent and honed memory of moving is also the fastest and most efficient way of moving. 1h30
Week of July 13
Sunday Oof, a sudden craving for milkshakes that I caved into last night means that I feel like I'm running with concrete in my stomach. I love anything dairy; it's unfortunate that my athletic endeavours don't react to dairy with quite the same enthusiasm. I shuffle down Northumberland on this extraordinarily windy day and immediately decide that this 1h50min tempo run is going to become a 1h50 survival run. I'm also very lightheaded. It's nice to be running the Northside Trail in early afternoon and full sunlight; I'm seeing the path all lit up since the sun is shining directly down the entire length when I get to the long stretch after Greenwood Drive. It reminds me of all the running I did last year and when I was training - a long time ago - for the Venice Marathon. It's also nice to see how things have changed since then. Yesterday I did a 4h20min bike ride to Jemseg on the old Trans-Canada highway, and climbed a few hills at the 2hr mark before turning around and coming back home. Those few hills used to kill me only three or four years ago. Now I don't even go down into my lowest gear. In Marysville I stop for a few minutes to get blood back in my head. The run back home is against a ferocious wind. I seem to have found a way to pull myself out of this, but I'm sure wondering how I'm going to get through an Ironman in one week's time.
Ironman USA, Lake Placid, New York
Saturday The eve of Ironman. Am I nervous? Nervous isn't really the right word. Imagine you have joyfully signed up for a trip to the beach. You know from experience that you will leave the beach at the end of the day feeling wonderful about yourself if all goes well (big if). But the beginning of the day - in fact, most of the day - you will be rooted in the sand and watching as a tsunami of pain and struggle moves in the distance toward you. That wave will
hit you, and you tell yourself that this is what you signed up for. So why
did you sign up for this? It's a question all athletes ask themselves when they
face a struggle that was also their choice. Not everyone answers it, and that's
too bad. I've found that my answer to the question has evolved over time, I
think - I hope - becoming richer and more complex as my experiences have
encompassed more of the world and of my own insight. I arrived in Lake Placid
on Wednesday. On Thursday I did my usual pre-race workout. It was supposed to be a two hour tempo bike and a half-hour run, but it was so beautiful
that the tempo efforts came only occasionally. Most of the ride was spent
delighting in the freedom and adventuressness of the bike, and the question. I
parked the car on Lacy Road, between a superb field with the mountains around
it and the East Branch of the Ausable River beside me. I biked along the 9N to
Ausable Forks. On my way back I saw that I needed more mileage to get to 2.5
hrs of biking, but instead of retracing some of the actual bike course for
practice, I turned up Route 12 in Upper Jay. Why? Why climb this hill? To
explore, but also to see my limits. Ok, so I've gone over this before. What
I've added to my answer to The Question on this bike ride is that the
struggle's purpose is to show me the awe and wonder of the world. I gaze at the
mountains around me and I know that all my efforts are dedicated to overcoming
them as quickly as possible. The swim is an effort to move through a foreign
medium as quickly as possible. Yet even if I get faster and faster, my time will never be zero. The mountains and the water will always be stronger, and they will be here long after I'm gone. How humbling is that?
And there's my great insight for the 2008 swing at The Question. The awe at being part of something far greater than me.
I'm not nervous but I'm definitely anxious and standing on the beach with some fear and trepidation. I'm glad I'm on this beach and feeling all of these things, understanding and appreciating this world just a little more each time I'm here, knowing that few get this sort of experience. How lucky am I?
My bib number is 2207, which I like very much. It has a seven in it, and I like sevens. If you want to see how I'm doing on race day, go to www.ironmanusa.com and click on the Ironmanlive link (it will only be live on race day). Look
for "Track an athlete". From there, you can enter a person's last name (Rooney)
or their bib number (2207) and get their latest split times. Thanks for being
online.
Sunday: Ironman Lake Placid Ironman Lake Placid 2008 was very much like the Tinman Half-Ironman 2008, only in reverse. Whereas Tinman went from pouring rain to hot condition, Ironman went from sunny weather on Saturday to torrential downpours and freezing conditions by the end of Sunday. At the end of Tinman, I had terrible sunburns; at the end of Ironman, I had pneumonia for the second time this year.
Not that I knew that when I was treading water at the start line at 6:54am, though. I had been wondering why I was so tired, why my throat was sore, why I didn't have any appetite. In the days before Ironman I had been taking long naps and had been finding myself sitting in a chair and swaying with fatigue. Race morning nerves concealed all of that...for a little while. I checked and double-checked my stuff in transition, listened to Enya and Caribbean Blue, but I couldn't find that groove that I had found last year at IMC. It took forever to put on my new wetsuit, a fancy blueseventy Helix I bought on Friday (wow, is this thing ever amazing!) I did all the stuff I remembered telling myself I should do after Tinman: I warmed up, I started close to the front, I lined up with the buoy line. And when the cannon went off and Mike Riley yelled to the 2300 of us surging ahead in the water "Have the best day of your life!" and Beautiful Day started playing, I really believed it.
Well, it wasn't the best day of my life (although it really wasn't that bad either), and it definitely wasn't a beautiful day unless for some strange reason you like torrential downpours, especially the kind that last for over 15 hours. Within about two minutes of hearing the cannon go off, I concluded that I had again started too far back in the crowd. Unlike previous swims, when I'd have to do a calculation and some tactics to figure out whether I was strong enough to pass people, this time I was fast enough that I passed everyone. All that swimming over the winter had really paid off. So did the wetsuit, I suppose. It was eerie to be swimming so effortlessly and to be passing everyone so quickly. And it was so annoying to be stuck around so many people. Once in a while I'd think of how I used to be terrified of swimming and how my biggest challenge was not drowning myself out of fear. My pace was so easy that I was absolutely certain - and quite ticked off - that my time would be slow. You can imagine my surprise when I got out of the water after the first lap and saw 36 minutes, my fastest time ever. I took half a second to smile, then when back to being in a rush and squeezed past a group of people wading back into the water for loop 2. I found the buoy line again but kept drifting off to my right, something I had noticed even in the pool during practice. Just before getting to the first I wondered about what was stinging my face and took half a second to look up. Rain. Hard rain. Oh well, I was wet now. Surely it would clear up soon.
I found feet to draft off of, a pair of men's toes in a weird green wetsuit. It didn't matter. The guy was faster than me, over the buoy line, and swimming in a straight line. Once in a while I'd fight someone off and be proud of myself for not just giving in to whoever wanted my space. I don't know if that counts as an improvement, though. The end of the swim cam at last and I did a little jump for joy when I saw 1:13 as I got out of the water.
I found a wetsuit puller and almost got my tri shorts pulled off as well as the wetsuit. Doh! During the run up to the transition tents there were huge crowds cheering us on, something worth mentioning because the rain was really coming down hard and these people were soaked. It can't have been a lot of fun for them to be out there watching wrinkly, soaked people with goggle marks trotting by, dazed and confused from a 4km swim. I got my bag on the rack and trotted over to the tent. It was black inside: the light wasn't working. I found a chair by the exit where there was more light and went through my list. Should I put on the light windjacket we got as Community Fund registrants and that, in a thankful moment of pessimism earlier this morning, I had stuffed in my swim-to-bike bag? I figured I'd appreciate the warmth going down the hill into Keene. But it killed me to cover up my favourite purple top. (No purple power!) I trotted out to my bike, unracked it, and finally felt good for the first time today. Something about seeing my beautiful Litespeed waiting for me, ready to go. My sweetie was waiting for me on the other side of transition and I high-fived him for good luck. Clicked in to my pedals and got ready to go very, very slow. The rain had taken out most of the braking ability and the roads were covered with little rivers. Most people were very careful, a nice change from shorter events when guys tend to go a little nuts. I was surprised at how hard I had to squeeze the brake levers to get just a little bit of braking action.
I had written a race plan for the event. It was based on my experience at my first Lake Placid Ironman and from my training here three weeks ago. The climb from Lake Placid to the top of the Keene hill had been a discouraging spot for me both times. In my race plan I wrote down my strategy for dealing with the discouragement of the climb and watching people zip by me: bless them. Yep, every time I'd get passed by someone, my strategy was to bless them, to delight in their talent and strength. And it worked. In fact, it worked so well that by the time I got to the top of the Keene hill I was pretty darn happy, even though the rain was pouring down and I couldn't see the beauty of the mountains anywhere. The Keene hill, however, was absolutely terrifying. It was so terrible that afterward I actually was more afraid of going down it again than I was of climbing the 1400 back up or running the marathon. There were moments I even thought of walking down that hill. It began easily enough, with a few people screaming "To your left!" as they'd fly by the rest of us trying to dodge the cracked shoulder and potholes. Halfway down, no brakes, and my bike bouncing off the pavement, it was truly unnerving. At one point my wheel got caught in a long crack and bounced out, then swayed dangerously. I recovered control quickly - I honestly have no idea how: I should have fallen, given how badly the bike swayed - and someone passed me asking me if I was OK. Technically, I was, but I was incredibly shaken up. And very slowly getting colder and colder. By the time I was in Keene entire body was shaking and I no longer had enough strength in my hands to brake. And that was only the first lap. What was going to happen in three hours from now?
Keene to Jay was my favourite part of the course. I settled in to my aerobars and enjoyed cruising along at 36km/h, feeling the smoothness of the bike and sense of travel. Moby's Everloving would be playing in my head, and I'd smile at the sight of little wisps of clouds moving through the hills that I could see. I was so grateful for having ridden the course earlier this year and for knowing that special beauty lay all around me, even if I couldn't see it. There's something I utterly love about Ironman Lake Placid, and that's the mountains, how close they are, how old they are. I stopped for a porta-potty just before the climb into Jay and hopped back on, ready for those hills, which didn't seem all that bad. I was climbing faster than most other people, tagging another woman in my age group who was looking strong and who seemed incredibly nice. The hills had a way of bringing people together: we'd be going slowly enough to talk to each other, and we'd complain about how hard things were while laughing at our own limits. The out-and-back along Haselton Road seemed to go by easily as well, although by now the rain was coming down even stronger.
The one thing about that rain was that it quite literally took the wind out of the day and made the long climb from Wilmington to Lake Placid almost easy. It certainly wasn't the killer climb I remembered three weeks earlier. In Lake Placid I stopped at the Special Needs station to switch a water bottle - I had only used one, instead of the usual three - and started again. I climbed out of the saddle on School Street to stretch my back and waved to my sweetie. And I got ready for the second time down the Keene hill. It wasn't quite as terrifying as the first time; there were fewer of us on the road and I knew what to expect this time. But it was still the hardest part of the bike course that day. The rain continued to pour, so much so that by the time I got to the out-and-back I could no longer see because of the water on the lens of the glasses. I finally gave up and took off my glasses. It was an Aha! moment: being able to see and to be a bit closer to what was going on. I even felt taller in the saddle, more focused and determined. I couldn't quite zone out as I had at Tinman, but I could at least ride with a little more determination.
At the aid station just before leaving the out-and-back I threw out my last two full water bottles. My strategy with water bottles this year had been different from last year's. Instead of going with a bottle of concentrate and picking up water bottles at aid stations at IMC (where, with the heat, that had turned out to be a great idea), I had decided to go with six full water bottles this year. Three were on my bike at the start of the day, and I'd switch the empty ones for three full ones at Special Needs. The idea was to have no water bottles left for the climb from Wilmington to Lake Placid to keep the bike as light as possible. And boy did that ever work. I started climbing like a mountain goat, passing others who looked a lot stronger than me and who certainly seemed surprised when I motored by them. I was just as surprised as them. I was also sick of being on a bike in the pouring, relentless rain.
In transition I took my time, slowly sipping my Coke and rubbing my feet with Vaseline. I talked to a volunteer who asked me how the Keene downhill had been. I sipped more Coke. I really didn't feel good. I hadn't had much of an appetite on the bike, and I had put a lot of faith in having a Coke to clear things up. But the truth was that I felt sick to my stomach. I finally got myself moving and started running. The nice part about the Lake Placid marathon is that it starts with a lovely downhill and huge crowds. It's impossible to feel bad in those first few miles. So I trotted along with Last of the Mohicans music in my head, finding my pace and my posture. I was hungry but had no appetite, and by the second loop that dilemma had gotten to me. My stomach couldn't digest food or consider the idea of it, but my body was in dire need of calories to keep my blood pressure high. As I struggled and struggled through the second loop of the marathon, walking more and more, it was all I could do not to throw up. I even walked parts of the last two miles, something I used to think I'd never do. I managed enough self-control for a sprint at the end. But not enough to be satisfied.
The next day at our celebratory McDonald's meal on our way back home, I moaned to my sweetie that I just wasn't happy with how it all went. I could have gone faster, I shouldn't have stopped for so long in the tent, maybe I should rethink my energy gels, I should have started further ahead in the swim, 13 hours was disappointing. My sweetie reminded me of my first years in triathlon, when my biggest wish was not to be last.
And I suppose I could stop there and say that true, I've gotten a lot better and I should be happy with the enormous improvement. That's what it's about, right? But I remember the article in Triathlete magazine about Stephen Long's view of high performance athletes. In his view, they had a couple of key beliefs, and one of them was that they were never happy beating the person behind them - they were always dissatisfied coming behind the person in front of them. I'm not saying I'm an elite athlete. What I'm saying is that a measure of dissatisfaction is a motivator for pushing past a limit and into a new place for self-discovery. I've seen so many women far more talented than me settle for far less, saying they're happy they can do Olympic distance triathlons, anything else is too much. Maybe they have good logistical and priority reasons for not doing longer or tougher courses, but I don't want to be the person who's content with where I am. So I'm signing up for 2009.
The Results
Overall Place: 1239 out of 2196 finishers (2345 started)
Total Time: 13:09:01.
Division Place: 47 out of 119 women 35-39
Swim Division Place: 47 out of 119
Swim Overall Place: 1184 out of 2345
Swim Time: 1:13:52
Swim Pace: 1:57min per 100m
T1: 12:41
Bike Division Place: 51 out of 119
Bike Overall Place: 1482 out of 2200
Bike Time: 6:54:37
Bike Pace: 16.2mph
T2: 10:42
Run Division Place: 40 out of 119
Run Overall Place: 979 (woohoo!)
Run Time: 4:37:11
Run Pace: 10:35/mile
Week of August 3
Tuesday For a few minutes this evening the sun makes a rare appearance. It's the first time I've seen it since...geez, I can't remember. It's been rain, rain, rain for the past week at least. I'm a little hesitant about tonight's run. It will be my first one since Lake Placid and I wonder how I'll feel. I have a special weapon, however: laces with purple hearts that I found at the local dollar store! They'll do better than the terrible adidas laces that untie after a minute or two of running unless they're double-knotted. It's too late to do the paths since the sun will be setting soon, so I do Golf Club Road. Climbing hills probably isn't the smartest idea for your first run after an Ironman, but I really want to see the river valley and the sun set. The evening is very quiet and very calm. Most people are away on vacation. I enjoy the peace and the sunlight in the trees, and for once I deliberately keep music out of my head. I just run along listening to the sound of my feet patting the asphalt. On my way back I watch a fiery orange sun set on the opposite shore. At the end of an hour I remember why running is so refreshing.
Week of August 10
Sunday The sun hints at coming out this afternoon and I know that if it does then I want to be running on the trail. The trails are in fact a great place to be today: they're completely, utterly abandoned. There's hardly any wind, just the sound of my feet and lots and lots of bugs. I keep the pace slow with a very short, quick stride and immediately find that zone where time and distance lose meaning. It's one of those runs when minutes, even hours, just pass by without you really noticing them.
I went to see The Dark Knight this week, the second of the Batman movies. Definitely a must-see, although maybe not for the squeamish. It made me curious enough to rent Batman Begins , also very good but nowhere near the weight of its sequel. I like superhero movies, or at least the ones done with some thought and meaning, because they offer so much to explore. Batman Begins is all about fear. There's some good dialogue and insight about the relationship between fear and action. We're all afraid of something, but we're most afraid of acting on our fundamental beliefs. After all, there's a lot of risk in taking action. And there's the responsibility of action if we acknowledge a situation or a talent for what it is. That theme is also echoed in the Spiderman movies. For a while I run and I wonder where I don't act in my training. What do I not take responsibility for? What do I not acknowledge or turn a blind eye to? 1h45
Friday This evening I'm running along Route 132 in St-Jean-Port-Joli. It's one of the clearest days we've had in a long while, and the wind is utterly calm, an unusual condition here along the St Lawrence Seaway. I leave the Auberge and head west along Route 132, which is the only place to run. There's an occasional car going by, but otherwise it's a gorgeous run by old Quebec houses, beautiful and lush gardens, the wide seaway, and the dramatic blue mountains far away on the north shore. I'm on my way to Ottawa with Burt the cat and this place is the halfway point to give Burt a break. After three hours of listening to him meow in the car before he settled down, I listened to one of my quieter playlists on my iPod for the remaining three hours of the drive. One of the songs was Ray Lamontagne's Be Here Now and it's the one playing in my head as I run. I feel oddly good, trotting away with a steady stride for 30min before turning around and coming back. I love the scenery and the quiet of the evening. When I turn around my pace seems to increase naturally, and in the last 20 minutes I really let go and run. This is one of the first runs I've had in months without chest congestion or soreness. And it's also the beginning of the post-Ironman endurance bonus, when I've got lots of base and endurance from all the previous weeks of training without the accumulated fatigue. I really feel like a runner tonight. 1hr
Week of August 17
Sunday A nice sunny day in Ottawa. Ottawa? Yep, my new home. Everyone who knew about my move to Ottawa heard loud and clear about how much I was going to miss the running trails in Fredericton. Ottawa is famous in Canada for its own trails, but having run on them quite a bit now I can say with complete confidence that Fredericton comes away a winner. No more running on the Northside Trail and seeing the sun sparkling on the Nashwaak River when I emerge in the fields near Marysville. No more runs in Odell Park. No more wonderful sound of feet padding on crushed gravel.
Not that Ottawa is bad. It's almost the triathlon capital of eastern Canada. And this afternoon I'm enjoying a slow, easy run through beautiful Rockcliffe Park and along the Aviation Parkway. I'm out for two hours and the heat is quite intense. Things go surprisingly well for the first hour and a bit. Then on my way back from the Aviation Museum I start getting lightheaded and tired. My chest is also hurting, probably from driving with the air conditioning on all day yesterday to keep the cat cool. The things we do for our pets! Run back through Rockcliffe along Acacia, another one of my favourite places. 2hrs.
Tuesday The bummer about mid-August is that it's the time of the year when you've just gotten used to longer days, and you realise that the days are getting shorter. Tonight it's almost dark when I start my run, and I do what seems to be a growing favourite of mine: down to Sussex, west to downtown, hang a right at the Chateau Laurier and go along Wellington, all around to Gatineau, and come back along Sussex after crossing the Alexandra Bridge. It's not a very long run so I'll have to find distance to add to it to get it to 1.5 hours. For the first part of my run I feel like my head isn't attached to my body. It's like there isn't enough oxygen in the air and I'm just out of it. I get worried enough that I think about stopping and going back: running like this could mean falling off a curb or a sidewalk, or mindlessly stepping in front of a car. My arms and shoulders are tired from swimming, although I actually think that makes me run better. By the time I get on Wellington I feel much better. I start picking up speed through Gatineau. Crossing Alexandra and looking at the Ottawa skyline is a bit strange: this urban landscape is now my home, what I'll be seeing day after day. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Along Sussex and feeling really good. 1h10.
Saturday I'm inspired by the men's marathon at the Beijing Olympics this evening and head out not long after they've started. Last week's women's marathon and Constantina Tomescu's outstanding performance had had the same effect. I was awed by the courage behind her decision to break away from the group only halfway through the course and to keep up the pace all the way until the end. There's a single mindedness to that sort of thing that appeals to me. Tonight I watch the men run and admire their form: their solid cores, light feet, high kicks, and minimal arm motion. I've got that in mind as I start and the image must be doing something to me because I feel very good. I put it down to running in late evening, which seems to always be a great time for me. I go down Beechwood feeling focused and strong, and turn down St Laurent toward Sandridge. I felt like running in this part of town tonight because it's a bit quieter than Sussex. From Beechwood to Sandridge is a long, very slight downhill. When I get to the Aviation Parkway, I turn back and go up Birch, then meander through the warren that is Rockcliffe Village. I pop out on Beechwood, and decide to do the loop one more time. At the end of the loop I'm feeling absolutely amazing. I'm really trying to recreate that strong core and huge propulsion that the Olympic runners have. I decide to do the loop one more time but in reverse so that I can run up the long incline and really push myself. It's that time of the year when I'm not so totally drained by Ironman training that running hard is actually fun. 1h15
Week of August 24
Sunday It's incredibly muggy today. The sun is almost out. I run down Mackay to Sussex, feeling a bit tired from last night's run but otherwise pretty good. My right Achilles tendon isn't quite so happy about the run. Tendonitis has been creeping back, although this time I'm not sure why. Last night it loosened up after the first 15 minutes into the run; today the stiffness stays with me for the whole run.
I trot along Sussex and decide to cross the very busy MacDonald-Cartier Bridge to Gatineau and see where that takes me. The bridge is quite long and has a great incline for probably about 500m and I like the effort it takes to get to the (slight) peak. Once on the other side I find a trail out to the Gatineau River and follow that up to Lac Leamy. I really, really like this trail: it's along a river, very pretty (although lots of traffic noise from surrounding but hidden highways), and there's hardly anyone on it at a time of the day when the Ottawa-side trails are very crowded. It's a nice peaceful interlude, time to listen to my breath and to my feet patting the pavement. My Achilles tendon doesn't get any quieter, unfortunately, and on my way back I have to do some walking in order to loosen it up. 1h45
Tuesday I leave the apartment in the last hour of daylight, which is just enough time to run down Beechwood, turn onto Whitemarl, find my way to Birch, and zip down to the path along the Aviation Parkway where I had to turn around the other night because of the dark. I like running down the stretch of crushed gravel path between Sandridge and the Parkway: it's along a huge field of wildflowers filled with chirping crickets that seems surreal at any time of the day, and it's on the slightest downhill incline so I feel like I'm running fast and strong. Delusion is such an important part of running! Most of us will never admit it, but I'm sure we all spend a few minutes of every run imagining ourselves setting world records, hearing TV commentators screaming into imaginary microphones about how strong we look as we run away with the lead. I think it's actually a really healthy part of any activity, a starting point in the iteration between where we are and where we want to be. The moment we believe we've arrived at where we want to be is the moment the process turns into something a little more worrisome.
But so far my imagination is working well and getting my body to zip up the hill below Rockcliffe Park. When I'm at the top of the hill my legs seem to have decided that they like the effort of going up so much that they're just going to keep running at a harder and harder pace. I worry a little that I might not be able to keep this pace up and that I'll trudge back home. But no, I just get faster and enjoy the effort more and more. I charge up Sussex all the way to the Chateau Laurier, then charge back. And when I turn up Mackay for the last kilometre, I really let loose. It's one of those times where running becomes exactly what it should be: an expression of what it means to be human and to be free, to sense a limit and delight in going past it, even if it's only for the briefest moment. I get a taste of that freedom for one precious kilometre. 1h15
Thursday I start my run around 7pm, which gives me lots of time before the sun sets at 7:48 to run along Beechwood to St Laurent, turn onto Sandridge and go down to the Aviation Parkway. I'm not running as well as Tuesday, although my Achilles tendon is feeling great. I've just finished reading a great article by Matt Fitzgerald, one of my favourite columnists who has quite a bit on Active.com, and that's influencing tonight's run. Matt points out that the mind is the biggest determinant in our running success or failure, something most of us will repeat but few truly believe. The mind shuts the body down long before any damage can be done to the body and uses the perception of pain to decide when to do so. Even runners who "hit the wall" in a marathon have lots of glycogen left in their muscles otherwise they would have been in a coma; those who said their legs stiffened and cramped and blame acidosis are still able to move, which means that the acidosis was not critical (otherwise they would be in something similar to rigor mortis). The brain has thresholds of pain - thresholds set long before the start gun of the marathon goes off - determined by training and personality that limit our performance.
That mind-body connection is a bit different than the one I usually consider in my own training. Matt's article goes on to describe different workouts designed to get a runner to deal with pain. So tonight I'm running and trying to find a pace that's fast enough to be slightly uncomfortable yet not so fast that I can't do a longish run. I need to expand my view of what is mental training so that this kind of thinking gets incorporated into every workout, just as music and mantras have over the years. Although since I'm in the throes of moving I haven't been able to listen to as much music as I normally have, and I miss it an awful lot during my run. A world without music is a terribly boring place. I focus on form and pace instead, trying to eke out more speed after I climb up Rockcliffe and start down Sussex. The last bit, running up Mackay which has a slight incline, is tough but rewarding. 1h30
Week of October 5
Tuesday I'm back! And feeling guilty at not writing in so long. It's been quite a two months: moving to a new (rented) house, hours and hours of unpacking, an ITB flare-up, a cold. Yes, it has been eventful. But tonight I'm out for a running even though my chest still feels a little sticky and my sinuses are quite congested. I've lost a lot of my running base; my legs have no flexibility or swing to them and after only 15 minutes I find myself looking at my watch and getting tired. I trot around Vanier, letting myself get lost in the warren that this neighbourhood is. At least it's promising for winter, more promising than Fredericton. There's no hill and maybe the streets will be wide enough and clear from snow to keep running. My IT band starts hurting in both knees, and my right one is very bad when I'm running against traffic. I have to go back to Chi Running principles to stay relaxed, but not feeling the lope in my stride makes running a bit unpleasant. 40min.
Friday Ah, a long weekend. Haven't had one of those in a while, or at least one where I like I'll be able to rest for a bit. The weather has warmed up considerably over the week, so I'm running in shorts and without gloves. I have a bit more of an idea for a route tonight. I got down to Marier and head straight to Beechwood, then down Birch, up St. Laurent, and back down Beechwood toward home. I get the feeling that this is going to become one of my favourite loops since I like running down Birch and through Rockcliffe so much. My knees are doing much better than Monday night, thanks to some agonizing work with the foam roller. And I feel a little more like a runner. Still, there's a lot of strengthening to work on! 45min.
Saturday Wow, is it EVER gorgeous today! There's kind of a rule of thumb that on long weekends one should only expect bad weather, but Mother Nature must have forgotten that this weekend because it's 18 beautiful degrees when I step outside. There's a bit of a breeze, a clear blue autumn sky, and fall foliage a day or two past its peak. What a day to be running. I keep the pace as slow as possible, making sure my strides are very, very short, that I'm upright and relaxed. I read an interesting article this week about the impact of relaxing as much as possible on speed. It really is true that the more you relax the faster you can run, or swim or bike for that matter. It's also a mark of experienced athletes who have been doing a particular sport for many years. I run down North River Road to Sussex, turn east and go through Rockcliffe Park. I really huff up the little climbs in Rockcliffe, but it's so beautiful that I'm enjoying myself anyway. I love the part of the path that cuts through the trees beneath the American ambassador's residence: it's a cathedral of yellow trees caught in the sun, and it's covered with pine needles that make sound and scent heavenly. I go for a ways down the hill then turn back. My sweetie is making a pumpkin pie that takes an hour to bake, and when it's out of the oven it will be his turn to go running. I don't want him to miss a minute of this afternoon outside. 1hr.
Week of October 12
Sunday I take a break from being domesticated and go for my long run. How sad that these days my long run is 1.5 hours! And I struggle with it! The beautiful weather is still here, so I take the same route as yesterday but when I get to the bottom of the cliff along Rockcliffe Parkway I opt for running right along the river rather than on the paved path. There aren't very many people on the path today, and I start to feel a little more energized.
Today I'm actually roasting a turkey for the first time in my life - yes, me a vegetarian, is tackling the most fearsome of all cooking projects, The Turkey. My sweetie and I are renting the cutest of houses and we seem to have gotten onto this thing about being, well, domesticated. Where does this urge come from? I've gotten into the habit of watching 'Til Debt Do Us Part every evening, a TV show that features one tough financial counseller, Gail, who helps deeply indebted couples out of their deep debts. Most of the couples are quite young, usually engaged or only married a few years. The ones with the worse debts all suffer from the same strange disease: the urge to have the perfect life. The one that includes the nice house in the suburbs, the dog, the friends over for supper, the two cars, the kid, the 9-to-5, etc. The couples even say it: "We want the American Dream." Why? And why am I getting it? What is so appealing about this life that it makes us forget our wishes and crazy ideas, and, more worryingly, drives us to irrational consumer behaviour?
I'm glad I'm running again. It helps me at least see the road I'm on. I still don't understand it, though. And after an hour my right hip is really killing me, so I've got other things to think about. I head up Buena Vista and turn down Springfield and then Acadia. On the corner of Buena Vista and Manor are two enormous maples, sun shining through them and glorious. Nice way to finish a run. 1h25min
Thursday One of the things I like about Ottawa is that there's so much less wind than there was in Fredericton. Fredericton was always windy, which wasn't all that pleasant in summer and downright awful in winter. But there's a bit of a gust tonight when I start my run. I overdress - it's 9 degrees Celsius, but I've got gloves and glove liners, three layers - rationalising that I feel more comfortable when I'm too warm rather than when I'm too cold. It's a weird fact: I relax a lot more when I know I can expect warmth. And tonight's run is realy a focus on relaxing as much as possible. I trot along Beechwood and do what's turning into my usual route along Beechwood to St. Laurent, north along St. Laurent to Sandridge, west on Sandridge and past the Canadian Police College. I go right to the end of Beechwood, where it turns into a sort of roundabout that's really a dead end. There are some nice houses along that street and in the daytime I enjoy seeing the field and Rockcliffe Parkway. My legs have a bit of spring in them tonight. Geez, I haven't felt that in weeks. 1hr
Saturday I'm exhausted when I start my run. I've swam two days in a row, both hard days, and my upper body can barely hold itself up. I remember how Thursday's run went well because I kept things slow and relaxed, so I start with the same idea. Down to Sussex, along Sussex with a nice tailwind, and across downtown on Wellington. As I pass in front of the National Art Museum, the bells at Notre Dame Basilica are pealing madly and it's a lovely, joyful sound. There are lots and lots of tourists out today. The nice part about this run is that I don't really pay attention to the time until 40 minutes, when I'm crossing over into Gatineau across from Portage III. I take it as a sign that my endurance is coming back. Gatineau is, as usual, abandoned. It's always odd to run from vibrant downtown Ottawa, cross a bridge, and find myself in more or less abandoned city. I cross back into Ottawa on the Alexandra Bridge; I can barely make it up the incline. Wow, am I ever out of shape. At least the gorgeous view of the cliff beneath Parliament Hill districts me. I run back across on St. Patrick, discover Old St. Patrick, and then get all confused when I try to find Vanier from North River Road. 1h20
Week of October 19
Sunday Same deal as yesterday: I start my run barely able to move. But when it's fall and the sun is out and the weather's warm, you don't stay inside. You know these days are numbered and you'd better make every single one of them mean something. I decide to go over to Gatineau along the river, although what I had really, really wanted to do today was go trail running in Gatineau Park. By the time I've finished weeding and planting and raking, however, I don't have what it takes to get in the car and drive all the way over to the park. So I settle for crossing Mackenzie Bridge and turning east onto the path. Some trees along the river are still in glorious, blazing orange, so full of colour that you almost think they're going to start walking, they're just so full of life. I trot very quietly along the path and pick up a trail to a look-out point. The trail is exactly what I was looking for: quiet, remote, and a break from civilization. I find more paths, one along the mouth of the Gatineau River that goes by a half-sunken wooden boat wreck. I seem to find my energy on these paths and a sense of peace. 1h30
Tuesday Tonight I've convinced my sweetie that we should try running with a local running club, the National Capital Runners' Association . They meet every Tuesdays at the parking lot at the Arboretum until winter when they can find a better spot. But on this blustery, cold night we five other runners to do some 600m repeats around the Arboretum. We warm up with an easy 3km run on the beautiful paths along the river, then trot back up to the road. I run with Martina, one of the loveliest people I've ever met and who makes my first run with this group such a great start. She and I are doing the repeats while also getting to know each other. This group is incredibly laid-back but still informative, thanks to Paula, its leader. She tells us she ran 53km on Saturday, then suddenly drops down into a squat and says "It's pretty good when you can do that after 45km of running." It's pretty good if you can do that, period.
Thursday The weirdest urge got into me when I started my run this evening: I pointed my feet south and headed for the busy Vanier Parkway. I'm usually looking for peace and quiet on my runs, so I figured it was a sign that I should be trying new routes. South along the Parkway I went, turning east onto Donald Avenue and discovering why that street was so quiet. Bad neighbourhood. But I was having a good run, feeling out a light stride and enjoying the slow return of my flexibility. Running with the group on Tuesday night had made an impression: watching Paula's very spartan, efficient running style had given me something to work toward and I was enjoying myself very much. Up St Laurent, along Coventry, and back onto the Vanier Parkway after a little trip down one of the sidestreets. It's only been 45min but I'm tiring already. A good kinda tired, though.
Week of October 26
Sunday It's blustery and overcast today. From the inside of the house, the day looks like one of those autumn days when you go outside and come back feeling refreshed. But it's surprisingly warm. I run with my sweetie for the first 30min of his long run, going across the Mackenzie Bridge and on the trail on the Gatineau side for about a kilometre. I'm trying to find a steady pace, something that always seems challenging when running with my sweetie. I'm running pretty well, in spite of my first workout of the season on the bike trainer yesterday when it was really pouring rain. Back over the Mackenzie Bridge and east on Sussex, enjoying a great tailwind. That lets me relax and work on my posture, which is getting easier now that I'm doing sit-ups more often and getting a stronger core. I listen to Afterglow in my head and feel more athletic and looser than I have on my runs lately. After descending the hill on the Rockcliffe Parkway I pick up a trail I don't get to often. It joins up with a road that goes around Mackay Lake. I love it: it's finally some quiet after running along busy roads, and now I feel more than athletic - I'm a runner. I find my groove and take it with me on Sandridge Drive, to the Canadian Police College, and back up Birch. I get another shot of that autumn sensory overload when I turn onto another maze of roads in Rockcliffe and run by a small wood where all the leaves have fallen and are getting soaked in the rain. Back home along Beechwood, too hungry to go any longer.
Friday It's odd to be out running on a Friday evening. Fridays have never been a run day, but I seem to be having a lot of problems getting myself into a schedule, so tonight is my first run since Sunday. And it's not just scheduling problems, it's the number of injuries and health downtime that's making it all the tougher. October can never go by without me throwing my back out or spraining a shoulder. This year, that happened on Monday night after yoga class. One too many shoulder shrugs: my shoulders stayed up when they should have gone down. So tonight I'm running tentatively, although I do actually feel pretty good. I leave around 8:30, not longer after the last kids knocked on the door for Hallowe'en. I hardly see anyone, except around Beechwood where groups of restless teenagers are jeering and looking for something to break. Down Beechwood and back. 1h15
Week of November 2
Thursday I run with my sweetie tonight. He's doing a short 45 minute run and I figure it might make sense if I go with someone else. On my own I'd be tempted to run for over an hour, which wouldn't be all that great for my shoulder and back. We run down Montreal Road to drop off a movie at Blockbuster. I just about suffocate on all the cigarette smoke. It seems everyone is standing around storefronts and doors for a smoke break. From Blockbuster we go north on St. Laurent, climbing the little incline and then going down to Sandridge. Up Birch, where my back starts aching. On our way along Beechwood I curb an overwhelming urge to really run, and by the time we get within two blocks of the house I'm glad I did that since my back is threatening to spasm. But it's nonetheless a hopeful run. I'm not reinjured and I can even think of running again soon. 45min
Saturday The sun has come out today, despite a forecast that said rain most of the day. I've got music to run with, something I've been neglecting a lot lately, and a nice route. Across the Vanier Parkway to the path along the Rideau River, down to Sussex, along Sussex to Wellington, looping around through Gatineau and back home on the Alexandra Bridge and Sussex. My one and only thing to make sure I do on this run: keep very, very short strides. What I really want to do is to run without having my back seize up on my, and the only way to do that is to run as slowly and as smoothly as possible. I think about how fast and strong my runs were a year ago. It's a bit discouraging to see where I should be at this time of the year. On the other hand, my best running year (which happened to be 2007) also started out as one of my worst. The focus over the next few months will be getting out more consistently for the 1.5-2hr runs that really seem to build endurance. 1h15
Week of November 9
Sunday I meet up with my sweetie at the two hour mark of his long run. He has another eight miles to go, so I'm running those with him to help with pacing. We do the same loop as I did yesterday, only tonight it's much quieter. Surprisingly, I have no stiffness or fatigue from yesterday's run. Instead, things are remarkably steady. As we go up the slight incline on Sussex across from the American embassy, my sweetie remarks that his heartrate is over 150bpm, so I adjust my pace a little and stick to it. In fact, I become obsessed with my pace. I start repeating the phrase "one pace, one pace" to myself, trying to sense exactly what this pace feels like. It's almost like imagining that I'm Robocop, and I have only one way of running and one very precise speed. It's a neat exercise - getting to know a certain motion and pace so wheel that even the smallest deviation feels obvious. On our way back up Vanier in the last mile my sweetie and I speed up. Gosh it feels good just to stretch out and really run. 1h25
Tuesday It's Remembrance Day, and very grey, breezy, and cool. I'm looking forward to a long run this monring. For whatever reason, the idea of runnign before lunch strangely appeals to me. I listen to the soundtrack from Last of the Mohicans, get it well put in my head, and cross the Vanier Parkway to the path. It's not too often that I get to run in daylight, and when I do get that chance I want to make the most of it by exploring new places. Going up the Rideau River is one of those places. I always see the path when I'm driving down the Parkway or Riverside Drive, envious of any runner I see. I start very, very slowly, another run with short strides. There aren't many people out. This run is giving me the rare feeling of being isolated and in a world of my own. Maybe it's the physical separation - the large green boundary - between the path and the road, the total absence of people on the path, but for the first time in a very long while this run is what I always hope a run will be when I first start out: time to go inside myself. The path always stays by the Rideau River and goes through long stretches of wooded areas. My focus is on the yellow line dividing the path and on listening to the music in my head. That's it. No deep thoughts, just breathing and keeping a rhythm until that yellow line ends when it comes to a road in 10km and I can turn around and run back. Around the 1h20 mark I start feeling a little stiff, and at 1h35 fatigue is more relentless. But my pace stays steady and I'm happy, recognizing the stiffness as an external condition, not as a failure or with any comparison of where I used to be. 2h00
Thursday A bit late for tonight's run. I gave my legs a day off yesterday, but they're still a little stiff tonight. They aren't sluggish, though, which surprises me. Their range of motion just seems a little limited. I trot up Marier to Beechwood and do my usual Beechwood/St Laurent/Sandridge and back route. I'm feeling more and more like a runner, less fazed by weather and the externalities of the sport. Yes, my legs are stiff. Yes, my hands are cold. But I'm running and finding that groove that I haven't had in such a long time. 1h00
Saturday Woohoo! Four runs in a week! I can't remember the last time this happened. And they're all pretty good runs, too, even if today's is in the pouring rain. I'm listening to the cheesy Sad Eyes by Bruce Springsteen. It's not that I actually like the song, it's that the first time I heard it was when I was walking the Via de la Plata in Spain, and KISS FM, one of Spain's most popular radio stations, played it all the time. The song reminds me of one of the best journeys I ever made, where the very simplest tasks - walking, following a trail, finding shelter - were also the most challenging and rewarding. Today I'm in another exploring mood, so I run east on Beechwood until it turns into Hemlock. I pick up the trail, going south paralleling the Aviation Parkway. The trail goes gently uphill for about a kilometre, uphill enough that I can feel just how badly my hillclimbing strength has regressed. The trail ends at Montreal Road, so I turn back and go down to the Aviation Museum and eventually pick up Sandridge. I'm totally soaked and my shoes are squishing. I get flashbacks from Lake Placid in July. And I keep going.
These past few weeks - actually, ever since I've moved to Ottawa - I've been searching for something in my runs. I sense, at some deeper level, that something's missing. I'm searching for some basic satisfaction that I used have and is now gone, but what exactly that is I just can't quite put my finger on. As I'm trotting along toward home on the path along the Rockcliffe Parkway, I'm trying to figure out precisely what makes a run satisfying. What are the conditions of an ideal run, the kind that goes beyond a period of movement or mere exercise? What am I seeking - what do we seek - in a run? I just can't answer that question at first, kinda like trying to find a route but instead just staring at brick wall. So I go with the Five Whys technique. Ask yourself a question, let yourself give a simple answer, then ask why. That will prompt another simple answer, and another chance to ask why. Repeat three more times. Answer to what I seek: alone time. Why? Because it makes me feel whole, stronger. Why? Because I can explore and let my curiosity lead the way. Why is that important? Because doing these things alone means I don't have to rationalise or explain myself to someone. I don't have to tell someone that I'd rather run down Hemlock and not St Laurent for whatever reason. I can just do it because, well, I feel like it. Intuition replaces rationalisation, and it seems rare in life that we have an opportunity to do that. And if it's good that intuition sometimes replaces rationalisation, then maybe I'd better stop asking why, and just run and enjoy the rain. 1h20
Week of November 16
Friday Wow, I can't believe I actually feel like going running on a Friday night when it's -8 Celsius with a windchill of -14 Celsius. What in the world has gotten into me? I dress up with longjohns, running tights, four layers above the waist, and the whole winter kit. I even take out the yellow Asics I was using last winter that I didn't like. They're warmer than my now-worn adidas. Unlike last year, I don't put my orthotics in them, and that seems to make quite a difference. They've got a nice hard landing and quite snap that I like in shoes. I run west on Montreal Road and go toward the Sandy Hill part of town. I want to check it out, now that I drive through it a few mornings a week on my way to swim practice. Mostly I want to see where Range Road leads. It through a dull series of low income housing, and on to Lees Road, which take me over the 417 and into a dingy part of town. Which has a great sidewalk to run on. I'm trotting along pleasantly, enjoying the snap in my stride and the ability to pick up the pace a little every now and then. Still struggling in the hills, though.
Week of November 23
Sunday My sweetie and I start the run late in the afternoon. He's doing his long run - 16 miles - while I'm only hoping for about 1h30min. We head up to Beechwood and toward Rockcliffe, cutting through some lovely roads to get to Sandridge, then turn up toward the pond and the start of one of my favourite stretches of path. My sweetie is running pretty fast for a long run. After 45 minutes, as we're running up Sussex, I go off on my own and slow down a little. I trot through New Edinburgh and go up to Beechwood. I'm in a bit of an exploring mood; I feel more like poking around than I do actually running. So I cross the river and turn north on a street called Charlotte. Hm, there's another Charlotte not far, in Sandy Hill. How confusing would that be? I trot around some more, curious to see if the two line up even though they're blocks apart. Sure enough, they do. Weird. The cool things you figure out when you're running.
Thursday I head toward Beechwood and go east, completely forgetting that my original intent had been to go down to Sussex and do the Wellington/Gatineau/Alexandra Bridge loop. I don't regret it for too long, however: once I turn down St Laurent and go along Sandridge, I find some relief from the traffic and finally get some quiet. I really miss quiet. I'm running very well tonight, too, maybe because I had been thinking about running all day long and looking forward to moving. I stop at the far end of Sandridge, where it meets Rockcliffe Parkway. Because of the low cloud cover and all the snow on the ground, everything is bright. I run back the same way I came, trying to corral my brain into just looking at the trees and snowbanks go by. It's hard to stay in the run, but this is one of the first times in quite a while that I at least make the effort, and that seems to make this run a bit better than most. 1h10
Week of November 30
Tuesday It's not too often that I feel worse after a run and actually regret my decision to go out. this is one of those rare occasions. My sweetie sets the pace for the first little while as we go down Crichton toward Sussex, but I find that I have to slow down very quickly. I struggle along Sussex and can barely climb the incline on Wellington that peaks in front of Parliament. Oddly enough, I don't recover on the downhill afterward, either. Just as we start crossing Potage Bridge into Gatineau my pace falters completely. A headache is coming on and I'm overwhelmed by the urge to lie down on the ground and sleep. It just gets worse until I have to take walk breaks. Whatever happened to those glorious runs from last year? 1h20
Saturday This morning I attended a fabulous, even exciting, swim camp that made me remember what it feels like to yearn for more in a workout. I got the taste for speed and for improvement - you know, when the possibility of becoming faster and better is suddenly in front of you and tantalizingly real, just out of your reach unless you're willing to put some hard work into it. So this afternoon when I set off for my run I was excited. I know that the possiblity of regaining that enthusiasm and love for running is somewhere in me, and this morning's camp was a brief touch back on that on enthusiasm. I warmed up down Crichton feeling my back cramping and my feet trotting slowly, finding songs in my head. The wind is blasting down Sussex so I shuffle slowly, then up to Wellington. This run isn't as bad as last Tuesday's. For whatever reason, the soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans gets in my head. Suddenly there's that whiff of running for something bigger than me, a flashback to my runs from last year when I could just turn on the speed and go. What was it that I used to think? Oh yeah..."Open up and let It run through me." Geez that sounds corny. I can't believe I - a rational, pragmatic person - is saying something like this. But you know what? It's working. I repeat it again as I my legs are picking up speed and I'm going up Portage Bridge. "Open up and let God run through you." Then, when you're running faster and you don't think you can keep it up for very long, relax and have faith in whatever power decided that you were capable of this speed in the first place, sort of like admitting that there's a safety net beneath you. It helps that now I've got a heck of tailwind as I cross Gatineau and start up the Alexandra Bridge. But finally I'm really running and happy with myself. 1h20
Ironman ~ Anything is Possible.
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Last updated on December 28 2008 by Helen Rooney
