Crossing the Line

No, today is not about crossing the finish line. It is about crossing that line that you say you will never cross. For me, I have always championed the fair weather running attitude. Each morning I would judge the weather and base my run on that. Raining? Forget it! Threatening to rain? I have better things to do!

I have with much trepidation been dragged out on the threatening to rain days and I dare say I have gotten wet as the threat became a reality sometime during my run. I have even come really close to running in the rain after I was challenged to try it because (the poor misguided fool thought) I would love it. “Running in the rain, what fun!” They told me. “Best time to run!”.

And then of course there is the knowledge that one race day my luck will run out and I will wake up to a deluge. The dilemma then will be, stay inside or go out and race?

All of these thoughts were racing through my head as I listened to the rain on the roof throughout the night. I nervously got out of bed and got changed into my “rain wear”. That is, long pants and a thin jumper. I got teased for this last when I showed up to training, as everyone said it wasn’t worth carrying the sodden water weight the jumper would add to my run. Sure, I may have used the jumper for just 2km before tying it to my waist, but without said jumper I would not have gotten out of the car at all, so it was all worth it.

And thus, I crossed a line I said I would never cross: I ran full out in the rain. Non-stop rain. (And yes, I have done previous rain runs, but unlike those runs, this run was raining quite a bit from the start and didn't stop the entire way through). I have always categorized rain runners into the crazy-obsessed section. I guess this means I’ve joined the funny farm .

And did I discover the best thing since sliced bread? Did I wonder why I’ve never run in the rain before? Nope, because I’ve always known the answer to this: it sucks. Every step was miserable. I must have looked at my watch every 100m or so, hoping against hope that it was a magic teleportation device and would tell me my run was finished and a car could pick me up and drive me straight back home. My knees ached, my hips hurt, and I just wanted it to all be over from the first couple of kms. The only thing that kept me going was one of my fellow 16kers who kept an easy steady pace throughout the run. My goal was to keep up with her and I did. We didn’t talk much. What was there to say amongst all that misery?

Total distance: 16.46km

Total time: 1.42.20

Avg Pace: 6.13min/km

Elevation: 164m

And to the people who swear that running in the rain is the best thing ever: you can keep your rain, thanks. Give me nice sunny mornings anytime.

Stranger Things Have Happened

Have you ever had a routine day where routine no longer feels routine? I'm not talking about the kind of day where things go wrong, but the kind of day where you simply forget how you normally do things. I'm not sure why, but in my fatigue I seemed to be forgetting the little things. Like say, my fancy GPS watch. Which was a shame because today something unusual happened to me.

I was fast.

Well, relative to the group! What I mean by fast is that out of 11 girls, on every rep I continuously was in the top three to finish. The slowest I ran a rep was near the end, when we had to run over the Goodwill Bridge and back as a rep, wherein I dropped back to 4th. Apparently, hills always get me. I tried to keep my focus on increasing my turnover while maintaining a short stride and it seemed to work really well. Now I've just got to make that mindset a habit and I'll be cruising.
And may I just say, I love coming in the lead? I have always been jealous of the leaders - they get longer rests between reps as they wait for us poor unfit ones to drag ourselves to the finish. As we gasp for air they are recovered and ready for the next rep. So off we go again. It feels like a system designed for the fast to get faster and the slow to get slower.
At the end we ran up the Kangaroo Point stairs. Following the lead of the girl in front, I did actually run them for the first time in my life! Normally I get about 1/3 of the way to the top and slow to a walk. I was really happy. And even weirder was that as hard as I worked today, I felt really good for it. Rather than finishing the run exhausted and beat up, I felt rather energized.
Someone asked why that might be, when normally I am not the fastest on a Friday. I think maybe in part it is because I didn't have a hill session Thursday morning to tire me out.
For those who have not experienced the Kangaroo Point stairs, here is an image of them to give you a rough idea of why they are sought out as a fitness person's Mecca in Brisbane. (Which may be why I don't like them - too narrow for the crowds most times!)

Anzac Day Special

Today was a public holiday, so things were a little...different. When I say ‘different’, I mean a 2 hour session of hills and stairs finished off with a water run.

The session took us around our normal Friday morning loop of the river. This loop remains – in my opinion – the most beautiful run in Brisbane. But we didn’t just run the loop. Instead, we did a bit of an intense detour. The session went something like this:

15min hill reps

10min stair reps (up Kangaroo Point cliffs, for anyone who can envision it)

1k interval rep

1 set stairs up to the Story Bridge then a 1k interval rep across the bridge

Medina Hill reps for ~15-20min

Quick jog (~6min pace) for 2km

Then water running for about 20min!

This last one was fun. We took off our shoes and jumped waist deep into the water at South Bank. The water was refreshing and not cold from a Canadian perspective. But oh, wow, could I ever feel all my muscles struggling! Trying to run while waist deep in water is tough, tough, tough.

I did keep track of everything (minus the water run), but keep in mind that my autopause on the watch occasionally kicked in on some really steep stairs as I wasn’t running enough horizontal metres to keep the satellites happy that I was moving. So the overall distance, time, elevation, etc are slightly under-exaggerated.

Distance: 10.64km

Time: 1.19.45

Avg pace: 7.30min/km

Elevation: 225m

I think one of the most exciting things about this run is that I can finally see Gold Coast race within my grasp, while a month ago I was so out of fitness the thought gave me shivers of dread.

Confusion on the Track

I made the decision this week to step up my training by adding in strength. Hoo boy! Shocking how fast I’ve lost all the strength I gained in pre-season training. I strength trained yesterday then hopped on my bike to ride to work. No problem! Only this morning, I couldn’t quite get out of bed. You see, the one thing I am very naughty about cutting out is stretching. My hamstrings were not pleased with me.

I debated whether to go, then decided I’d go and just jog lightly if I had to. Hah!

I was so tight and sore that I struggled through the warm-up. When it got to the reps, our coach decided a little mental math was in order to wake everyone up. So, you have 4 cones set up as follows:

**                                           *                                              *                              ***

The double star  = start, triple star = turn around.

The reps were: 

400m rep / 400m recovery

800m rep / 400m recovery

1200m rep / 400m recovery

1600m rep / 400 m recovery

1200m rep / 400m recovery

800m rep / 400m recovery

400m rep / 400m recovery (I think only a few people actually made it the full way through within the time frame!)

Now, it all may seem pretty simple to those of you visually staring at the little stars and plotting out your course.

Now imagine it is 5.30am. It’s dark, you’re exhausted, and with every step your hamstrings are screaming at you in anger at not being granted a rest day. To try and do mental math on top of that just doesn’t work.

The 400m rep was fine.

The 800m rep was fine.

But then at the 1200m rep, brains stopped functioning. Confusion ensued as some people recovered 400m early, calling out to those on the rep that they’ve miscounted and are doing 400m extra. I mean, it’s one thing to run this all in a straight line and do mental calculations but add a turn-around in the middle of the rep and runners are stumped.

Looking at the diagram I am pretty sure that – despite the odds – I was actually one of the people who ran the 1200m as a 1200m (as opposed to an 800m or a 1600m).

I got up to the 1600m before time forced me to draw it to a close. I managed one more 800m rep and then it was all over. Thank goodness!

Unfortunately, this brain overload of so many lap variations meant I had no brain power left to remember to split time my watch for the rep/recoveries. So it defaulted to doing km count-outs instead.

Total Time: 53.51

Total Km: 8.75

Average Pace: 6.09

Total Elevation: 18m

Split paces

Warm up:  6.19

Reps by km markers (inc recoveries): 6.13 / 5.40 / 5.54 / 6.33 / 5.45 / 6.45 / 6.18

Cool down: 5.51 (ironically faster!)

Blitzing, friendship, and some more than minor but less than major embarrassment

What a great morning! Beautiful weather, no wind, and a fantastic run. I was nervous about doing my first 16k in 6 months. The group kept together for the first 5k at a nice, easy pace. But something unfortunate happened that has only happened to me once before...I needed to use the loo! Perhaps had I just been doing 12k I could have managed, but by the 4k mark it became clear I wasn’t going to make it through the next 12k without a pit stop. So I cleverly ran ahead when everyone else stopped for a group drink stop. I cut into what I thought was the ladies’ loo...
Until I saw the urinal. One stall, one urinal. But it was too late at that time. I figured, since it was only just on 6am there would be no one else around. Seems logical, right? Except I forgot about the other runners. I heard the group thundering past on the boardwalk soon after and then to my great dread, I heard the door opening. Ulp!
After a minute of silence, I cautiously opened up the stall door and peered out. To my great relief, no one was there. Safe! So I quickly washed my hands and bolted to the door...only to find my coach standing outside! Busted!!! Not the most embarrassing thing I’ve done – if you can believe it – but embarrassing enough. He had seen someone inside and decided to wait outside. I am just super grateful he decided to wait outside and not inside, or we might have had a Mexican stand-off in the men’s toilets. Eeesh!
I kept up a good pace and was feeling strong at the 8k turn-around. There was a group of 6 of us doing 16k and on the way back I reached a new dilemma. The guy I was running beside was running his heart out at a 6.50-7.10 pace. I had been cruising on a solid 6min pace, which is what the others were also doing. Did I join them and keep up my awesome pace while I was feeling so strong and fit, or fall back with the slower runner and encourage him along the way, foregoing an awesome training run in the vital lead-up to the Gold Coast?
The decision was simple: I have been that slow runner – I still am that slow runner. And what makes a running group a running group is that you do not leave a runner behind. I admit that the selfish part of me was disappointed, as I’d been having such a kick-ass run. But I waved off any protests from the other runner that I carry on ahead without him. That is simply not how things are done. Hasn’t there always – or often – been someone pulling along beside me, encouraging me and keeping me going just that little bit more as I struggled through a pace they found a breeze?
I did leave my friend, in the end. With about 500m to go he decided to walk the rest of the way and insisted I carried on. This time, I did. I ran to the end...and then kept going. I had, after all, taken the short cut with my fellow runner and only done 13.8km (not counting the walking breaks we took). I couldn’t call a 13.8k a 16k run no matter how I stretched the numbers, so I kept going until I had done a solid 16k. And you know what? I felt awesome. Here’s hoping the rest of my long runs are that much fun and energizing! I could have gone another 4k no problem.

Total distance: 16.22km
Total time: 1.45.39
Total elevation: mostly flat. Two bridges and a hill at the halfway mark
Avg pace: 6.30km/hr

1km: 6.30
2km: 6.17
3km: 6.22
4km: 6.18
5km: 6.20
6km: 5.58
7km: 5.40
8km: 6.46
9km: 6.48
10km: 6.50
11km: 7.02
12km: 6.35
13km: 6.48
14km: 6.17
15km: 6.51
16km: 6.47

ps – I walked to the shops later on this morning, planning to cycle to a barbeque for lunch about 6k away. As I walked back from said shops, my feet started to drag, my legs started to ache, and I realized I couldn’t possibly cycle 12k today when I have already a planned 10k cycle tomorrow.
And on a final after thought, isn’t it sad that I can run further than I can cycle? That I’d much rather do a 16k run than a 16k ride, because I think it will be easier? Food for thought. Time for a second post-run snack. Running certainly makes me hungry!

Running for Cupcakes

Oh, wow! This week has flown by. I realize I last left everyone hanging with my injury. But then I got a life outside of running (I know, shocker!) and my week has been run, work, go out, sleep. I have barely had a chance to keep up with emails, let alone write on my blog. Apologies!
So, what has happened since that fateful Thursday? I took Friday and Saturday off. I was half talked into going for a walk/run on Saturday with the team, but I worried because I was still limping Friday night…and Saturday, even without the running! On Sunday my limp went away but my ankle was still tender and I stayed off it as much as possible. Monday it was finally on the mend and so I went to Tuesday sprints.

Tuesday: the warm up was a bit tough, as my ankle was a bit tight as it readjusted to running. Chris (our coach) placed me in the “watchlist” group. This is the group of people tapering for or recovering from a marathon or half marathon, and those recently returned from injury/illness. So, instead of doing 2k reps with a 2min recovery, I did 1k reps with a 1k recovery. I have so much to catch up on I won’t get into lap times, but I’m happy to say that once the reps started my ankle had loosened off and I felt cautiously great the rest of the session. I probably could have done the 2k reps, but no need to tell Chris that, right?

Thursday: hills! After my performance on Tuesday I was off the watchlist. We did one of my favourite hill sessions. It is two hills you randomly alter running between. One is long and steep, the other shorter and steeper. I think I like the reps because it’s not as obvious if I fall behind the group – it’s not like anyone has to wait for me! It was exhausting, but I can honestly say I worked as hard as I could, which was awesome.

Friday: today marked the re-launch of the Friday women’s beginner group. It was the same as any other session, but cupcakes were on hand. Yum! We have a professional baker in our running group who doesn’t so much as sell her creations as give them to fellow runners. Thanks, Charmaine*!!! Even when you couldn’t come, you still sent cupcakes for the group! We did an 8k circuit around the river running reps of about 1k long. From the start, everyone was salivating over the thought of cupcakes and I think it was the motivation that kept us all going. Never get between a woman and her cupcake. I think we should rename Friday’s group to cupcake Friday and have a delicious treat waiting at the end of every run.

The picture of the cupcake you see was not taken by me - I devoured my cupcakes (yes, more than one) with only a flickering thought of snapping a photo of their yumminess. One of my teammates had more self control and kindly sought to make the rest of the facebook world a jealous place.

*Note - I tried to set up a cool hyperlink with Charmaine's blog, but the cool hyperlink button isn't working. For those curious, http://char-mylifesamarathon.blogspot.com.au/

My Luck Runs Out

Today, in what felt like the dead of the night, we did hills in the cemetery. I wanted to stop for a rest, but it wasn’t our final destination. Chris kept us from any dead ends, even if some of his jokes would have made people roll over in their graves.
Heh heh heh.
Yes, I was happily grinding through the hills of the cemetery making up puns in my mind, when something happened that nearly scared me to death. Did I spot a ghost? Run into a gravestone? No, sadly my problem was much more grave. Quite simply put:
My luck ran out.
One minute, I was a happy-go-lucky slow runner turned witty punster. The next...BOOM!
All this time of luck sans injury, and then I roll an ankle off the edge of the trail and that’s it. My run is over. The End. A fitting place for it. So here I sit, giving my ankle some TLC and some RICE. Curses!
As always, the team rallied around the fallen runner – not to scavenge but to support. Chris recommended a fellow runner walk the 2k back with me to the cars while he finished the session. The other runner made it very clear it was his delight to walk back with me – not his obligation. Awwww.
In the end, my stats were as follows:

Total time: 32.05
Total distance: 4.79
Elevation: not recorded
Avg pace: 6.41

Slightly Depressing Time Trials

Today we had the dreaded ‘time trials’. I’m not sure if you are supposed to run time trials at a specific pace. I decided to run my heart out and see what said pace was, rather than trying to pre-determine it. The trials went 3k run, 500m recovery, 2k run, 500m recovery, 1k run, 500m recovery. Actually, the final 1k run was only for those fast people. I only had to do a time trial of 3k + 2k, which was nice. With a 1k warm up and a 1k cool down run, this added on some much needed distance to the morning.

Total distance: 8.27km
Total time: 49.43min
Elevation: 23m
Avg pace: 6.01min/km (including warm up, cool down, and recoveries)

My average pace was as follows:
1k: 5.34
2k: 5.10
3k: 5.33
500m recovery
1k: 5.42
2k: 5.26
500m recovery

Kinda depressing, actually. A 5.30 pace would be a dream half-marathon pace for me. And yet right now that is more of my 5k pace! Siiiiiigh.
On the plus side, when I rode to work this morning – and on the way home – I passed every single runner on the track. Mwa hahahaha!!!

Easter "Rest"

I’m under orders to take a rest weekend along with all the squad. Right. I decided to do exactly as told.
Except...the rest would really make more sense for those who had been training the past few months rather than the past few weeks. For those (such as me) who have only just kicked back into training, taking 3 days off when I need all the help I can get seems a little counterintuitive. Of course, I wouldn’t want to go against the coaches directions, who would know more than me.
This Easter Sunday, I got up to watch the sunrise on Mt Coot-tha with some friends. It included live music in the form of a church service – cool! I decided that since I was up and out at Mt Coot-tha at that time of day, it was the perfect chance to put on my “resting” clothes. So after the sunrise and the photos, I left my friends to go for a short “rest”. Not that I ran, of course. But if I had run, I imagine my stats would have resembled the following...

Distance: 5k
Time: 36.17min
Elevation: 180m
Avg pace: 7.15min/km

My split times might have looked as follows – had I run instead of resting as I had been told to do.

Downhill: 5.53 / 5.48 / 6.03 (final 500m)
Uphill: 8.33 / 7.52 / 8.41 (final 500m)

It was such a beautiful morning for a “rest” and a beautiful time of day to be out! (The picture you see is of the sunrise at Mt Coot-tha before I went for my rest.) How could I resist the opportunity? Besides – a brekkie of hot cross buns was on the menu and I needed to work up an appetite. Yum!

Ambling Along

I’m ambling along in training, slowly building back up the fitness I left behind at the end of last season. This week we ran our long run on Good Friday. It was a rather uneventful 12k – peaceful, easy. As always, lovely to catch up with fellow runners! The best part of 12k is returning home and realizing you still have the whole morning stretching before you!
Distance: 11.82
Time: 1.13.34
Elevation: 103m
Average pace: 6.16min/km
It’s funny – I can’t believe I am calling a 12k run relaxing and pleasant, but it was! I look forward to the day when I can call a 20k+ run relaxing and pleasant. Despite my belief that the pace sped up towards the last few kms, I realize we kept a pretty consistent pace throughout the session. The km splits had the following paces:
6.27 / 6.22 / 6.35 / 6.11 / 6.10 / 6.28 / 6.08 / 5.57 / 6.16 / 6.28 / 6.01 / 6.05
Next week I begin moving up to the 16k runs. Eek! Time goes too quickly! 16k will be tough. And I’ll miss the days of 12k runs.

Trail Running

Thursday this week introduced me to the true awesomeness of trail running on Mt Coot-tha. Unlike last week's running on grass boringness, I really loved the trails this week offered. It may be the last trail run until winter is over, as it is too dark and dangerous to run trails in winter. Boo! That's a shame. As always with Thursday, it was tough. You know it will be tough when you start by running down...and down...and down some more.
Total distance: 5.80km
Total running time: 48.08min
Total elevation: 232m
Average pace: 8.18min/km
It was a bit embarrassing when the rest of the group had to stop and wait for me. I was keeping the second last person in sight, but the leaders were concerned when they couldn't see me. I'm touched that they waited for me but sad I couldn't keep up on my own! Something to work towards - keeping up with the Galeforcers.

Here is a breakdown of the km laps (with pace, elevation)
km 1: 8.54 pace, -83m loss (+11m gain)
km 2: 7.11 pace, -47m loss (+16m gain)
km 3: 6.03 pace, -45m loss (0m gain)
km 4: 7.18 pace, +29m gain (-12m loss)
km 5: 10.46 pace, +111m gain (0m loss)
km 6 (800m): 9.53 pace, +64m gain (-12m loss)

Anyone notice the pattern of elevation difference affecting pace? As an experiment, I've tried to link my fancy pants watch data page to this blog. Check out Mt Coot-tha Trail Run Loop by loraly9 at Garmin Connect - Details. If you see this and immediately panic over my heart rate - don't.

Awesomeness!

I started this blog as a way of updating friends and family on my running ventures and misadventures. Then a friend pointed me out to the stats page and I found I have international readership (outside of Canada, Australia, and the U.S.A. where said friends & family reside). Awesome! I don't know if it was by Internet navigation error or not, but you all rock!

To deflate my ego, I guess it's time to talk about today's sprint session. This consisted of the following:
200m rep/recovery
400m rep/recovery

Total distance: 7.79km (including warm up and cool down)
Total time: 49.21
Avg pace: 6.22min/km

My average pace in the sprints varied between 4.59-5.37. I had one fantastic 4.30 on my last 200m rep where I tricked my brain by focusing on moving my arms rather than my legs. It is an old trick, but I always seem to forget it when I'm actually running. How frustrating! If only there was a way to remember to apply all the smart running tricks I learn in my actual training.

The recoveries were meant to be at 60-70% effort but by the end of the first 400m rep I was maxed out and had to walk a bit during recoveries.
Finally, I know this is slow (still). I can see all this fitness I've lost and the road to recover it just keeps stretching out before me. But then I see how far I've come since the beginning of the season.
FYI, the photo above is one of me from Sunday's run with bicycles. I always love running by the rowers. Unbeknownst to them, I sometimes try to race them. But only when they're resting. And even then I'll keep these races short - just so I can win. Well, I almost always win.
I'm being encouraged to include more photos and whatnot in my blog, so here is my attempt to do so. It's kinda hard to take photos of me training, as usually it is dark and I'm too exhausted/focussed to carry a camera.

Running with Bicycles

Off we went on out adventure! Me and my awesome bicycle escorts. We negotiated a later start time than I'm used to (7.30am). It was hot, but lots of fun. My legs started feeling it after 9kms and I realized how much fitness I've actually lost!
It was a lovely slow run. At times I ran beside my cycling friends and we talked. At times they buzzed ahead to take photos of me as I approached, or paused at a water fountain for a drink. I kept chugging along at a not-too-fast pace.

Total distance: 12km

Total time: 1.18.38

Total elevation: 95m

Average pace: 6.33min/km

I managed to keep a fair pace despite the heat until km 9, when my lack of conditioning began to show. At this point, my quads started to fatigue. This is unusual for me, as usually it is my heart/lungs that hold me back. I guess my pace was slow enough and my legs weak enough that they were the first to give in.

By the 11th km, everything hurt - except my knee! I was happy that my knee didn't hurt. But my legs were all but shaking from effort. It is so sad how much fitness I've lost in my...well, my ~6 months of being either slack training or in off-season. Sad, but perhaps not too surprising.

Only 12 weeks to go until the very special Gold Coast Half Marathon!

"I could be talked into it"

Six innoculous words that often mean the start of an adventure. Today was no different! But to get to that, I need to backtrack a little.
I need to backtrack to Thursday's hill session, where I wrote of having a little niggle in my knee towards the end of the session.
That little niggle returned on Friday's session of hills/stairs (and running in between) and returned with a vengeance. So Friday night I wound up debating the merits of doing Saturday's long slow run of 12k with friends. It boiled down to this:
Reasons to go - I'm in the final 12weeks of training before the Gold Coast, and have a very poor fitness base. Every run counts from here on out.
Reasons to not go - that little niggle could easily turn into something much worse, and then I'd miss many sessions as I'd be injured and unable to run.
One of my friends suggested that I run on Sunday instead. A great idea, but I am no longer that person who can self-motivate to run long distances on my own, and the only people I know who could run 12k with me are in my running group and would be running on Saturday instead. Hmmm. I jokingly told my friends, "I'd go Sunday if you would ride beside me". To my surprise, one answered, "I could be talked into it."
And so the idea was born! We planned a route that would not coincidentally map out my route to my new place of work, as I am hoping to start riding to work this week. And as an added bonus, they would take pictures of me training along the way. Let the adventures begin!
...to be continued...