Heavy Feet, Heavy Heart

Running is about being who you are on that day. It is honest - more honest than I am, sometimes. I may pretend I never ate that second piece of chocolate cake, but when I start a sprint session there is no way I can hide from the truth!
On Tuesday, my footfall was heavy. I don't mean just any heavy. I mean I felt like a great thundering mammoth that could not pick my feet off the ground. I tried to step lighter, shorten my stride, straighten my posture, control my breathing...but no matter what I tried, my feet continued to feel as if I was lifting weights far greater than I could carry. I pondered over this and tried to attribute it to a cause: I had eaten healthy, rested well, and even taken a light day of training the day before.

It wasn't until halfway through the session that it all connected with me: Heavy feet, heavy heart.
I thought about this for a few laps. I accepted that everything is not well. And I reminded myself that not everything has to be well right now. I embraced my grief and felt no need to pretend it wasn't there.
And do you know what? By the end of the session, my foot fall was much lighter.
And that, my friends, is one of the reasons I run.

On Eagle's Wings

Most of you will know the events of the past few weeks that led to my unexpected running and blogging hiatus. And since I have lately bent the "don't talk about non-running things" on this blog, I am going to bend them a little more. There are days when I feel like I write eloquently on my blog. This is not one of those days. This is just me, my computer, and words from the turmoil inside...

On March 1st of this year, after 33 years of being trapped in a wheelchair, my beloved brother David was lifted up to heaven to fly among the angels. It was very sudden and unexpected, but we were all blessed that we could be with him in the end. It has been devastating for my whole family and all those who knew and loved him.

For the past couple of weeks I didn't run. I didn't even walk. I surrounded myself with happy memories of my brother and tried to release all the bitterness and regret through tears.

 No words can express the joy that you brought to our lives

Flashback family photo - David with his trademark chuckle

Tuesday marked the first day that I returned to the tri club. It was hard. I think every "first" activity is going to be hard. But my tri group has been so supportive and I know it is good for me to get back on my feet.

As you all know by now, some days when I run, my thoughts are filled with mathematical figures..."if I run x split in y distance my speed is z". Or, "I have y distance to run and my speed is z so in w minutes my run will be finito!"
Sometimes my thoughts are filled with sarcastic or witty quips that I can put onto my blog. Not that I remember any of them after my run is over. If I did, you would all be rolling on the floor laughing with every genius word, I promise.
Sometimes I drift off into the space of who-knows-what and let random thoughts trickle past.
But sometimes I have deep reflections on life. Tuesday was one of those nights.

As I ran laps around the giant hamster wheel, I thought about all the "nevers" in David's life. There were a lot! David never stopped giving love, never made high demands of others, never focused on the bad in a situation when he could be laughing and finding the joy, and never stopped showing all of us how to be better people. There are a lot of other things I could add to the list, but you get the idea.
And then there were all the other "nevers" that saddened me... I would never get another picture with him, never get to sing him another song (and David was my absolute #1 [and possibly only] fan when it came to my singing!), and...well I would never get to do a lot of things with him.

After 20min spent trying to get the "perfect family shot" this is the result. David looks like a rap star, but the rest of us...well, you get it.

 Keeping it cool amidst the craziness of his little sisters. Oh, the pain older brothers must put up with!

On Tuesday I ended up really enjoying the run...and even the swim. Pushing hard was a good reminder that I'm still alive...still here. There is so much more joy and laughter in the world to discover. I'm not as good at David at finding it, but I will do my best.

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my [sister]. You will want to laugh with me. And you will be laughing as you look up at the sky!"

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Thank you, David, for giving me a world and sky filled with joy, love...and laughter.

Cause It Stays Stuck on Me

For the past few weeks in training, I've had a small companion join me in the pool. And this small companion reminds me why I like running WAY MORE than swimming.
What was this little companion, you ask, that made me doubly wish I was back on the track instead of ungracefully swallowing mouthfuls of water as I attempted to breathe?

Yep, floating around under my lane was a lonely little band-aid. But, lonely no more, since I was getting nice and close to it. Every. Lap.
I'm not sure if each week this band-aid has been a different guy or the same guy. I'm not sure which thought is worse - poor vacuuming by the pool staff, or numerous people who think sharing their band-aid with the next swimmer is appropriate pool etiquette.
And did I mention I swallow a lot of water when I swim?
I will take a shoe full of a stranger's gum over a mouth full of someone else's band-aid any day!
How did my running go, you ask? I know this is a blog about running...but I'm still stuck on the floating band-aid. Or rather, should I say it's still stuck on me?

Inner Lazy & Too Many Cookies

I'm sad to admit that on Tuesday my Inner Lazy won the battle.
I was sitting at home with my parents after having eaten a ridiculous amount of junk food over the weekend. My stomach was bloated out in front of me and I had the fatigue that comes from eating lots of high-fat food (maybe that's why "fatigue" is full of "fat"?...)
I looked at the clock in dread as it ticked on. My coach wasn't there this week - she'd given us the workout ahead of time. I convinced myself that I was too [lazy/tired/bloated/insert word here] to possibly exercise tonight, and sank my butt deeper into the couch. I promised myself that I would do the exercise another day.
As it happened, that day was today.
And no, I didn't do the exercise. I looked at the program prescribed and decided to do something...something different.
I am surprised to say that I actually miss the 1k+ reps I used to do on Tuesday mornings. Around the track our reps are mostly ~400-600m.
And I didn't really want to do all the pool drills on the list. I wanted to see exactly what it would mean for me to swim the 750m distance that I'll be swimming in the sprint tri.
So I started on the track with 5x 1k reps, which is 5 laps around the track. I allowed myself about a 6min recovery between reps, which I walked.

Rep 1: 4.55
Rep 2: 5.08
Rep 3: 5.18
Rep 4: 5.14
Rep 5: 5.12

Geez, I was all over the place! And I'm sad I couldn't keep to my sub-5min 1k reps that I have been doing the last 1-2 years. My mind said yes, but my body reminded me of all the garbage I'd been eating and warned me to slow down before my half-digested pre-exercise cookies came back up. I can't imagine the gym people would have been thrilled to see that happen, either.

Off to the pool, where I expected it would take me about 45min to complete 750m. Seriously, that's what I thought it would take. Maybe an hour, although I hoped it wouldn't be much more than that. I wanted to get a baseline feel for how long it took me to swim that distance, so I could mark improvement leading up to the race.
I was so exhausted after the track workout I very nearly skipped the pool. But my wonderful Dad who was doing his own training at the same time sweet-talked me into it. So into the pool I jumped, telling myself that if I felt terrible I would cut the workout short.
I didn't go very fast or very hard, and I took lots of breaks at each end of the pool, including breaks to chat with my Dad and exchange grimaces of exhaustion with the guy in the next lane.

Total time for 750m: 21.30min

Hmmm. It appears I'm a much faster swimmer in reality than I am in my mind. Now if only I could say that about my running!

Odd Ducks

In a theoretical world, I always thought a triathlon was in the wrong order. Why not start with the bike, then jump in the water to cool off, and end off with a nice run?
Now I understand why they start with the swim: there is a risk of drowning when exhaustion is reached!

I decided that I had babied myself enough, and it was time to crack down and get in a proper work-out! We were doing 2 laps (~400m+) of a hard run, followed by a 1 lap walk and then 2 laps at a moderate pace.
Previously my focus had been on form. This week I decided I could still focus on form...but I didn't have to take it easy on myself!
My primary focus was on my shoulders. I'm happy to say that my coach noticed a large improvement on my shoulders from last week. And when I periodically checked in on my cadence, I was still right on target. I think I'm getting more used to the shorter stride.
I went through about 5 sets of the work-out and maintained a steady 2.00min time for each of my "hard" 400m sprints. In fact, I was bang on 2.00 every time. Well, with the exception of the first time when I was 2.05.
 Not having run lots of 400m in my life, I'm not sure if that would be a top speed for me, but it was a top speed for me on the night and I didn't fade, so it was satisfying.

Then I jumped into the pool.
Surprisingly, it wasn't a complete disaster. But I could definitely appreciate the importance of getting the swim finished with first. In the pool, we are divided into 3 lanes according to our levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced. I was rather surprised (and a little proud and a little skeptical) when I was moved into the "intermediate" lane. For whatever reason, I seem to be a natural at the odd little swimming drills we do. I guess it makes sense, since I'm good at odd little swimming.

Smaller Stride but Still Swinging

Week 2 of tri training. I'm not used to training so late at night (8-10pm). Normally I'm training from 5.30-6.30am and my body has adapted appropriately. As such, I now have insomnia the night I train, since I'm so wired from the work-out. Great. I'm hoping I can readjust soon!

Last night I continued the focus of last week: cadence. As we did our pyramid reps (30sec, 1min, 2min, 3min and back down with a 1min recovery in between), I focussed on shortening my stride, landing mid-foot, and keeping my cadence nice and short.

Towards the end of the session, Coach Mary pointed out to me that my shoulders were swinging, I wasn't leaning forward enough, and a few other problems with my form...but hey, at least I had good cadence!

In my oh-so-short days as a ski racer, I had a fantastic coach who taught me something important: break down technique and focus individually on each area before looking at it as a whole. Therefore, every week he set me a goal in training and that would be my sole focus for that week. If my focus was on my hand position, everything else (e.g.: knees, hips, head, angles, etc) was all but ignored.

I have applied this idea to my running. So while I still don't have perfect form, I am happy that my cadence and foot stride is much improved.

Next time I'll focus on my shoulders, and with any luck it won't be long before my fitness and speed have built their way back up to where I'd like it to be.

...And as for the swimming part. Yikes! On the positive side, my swimming form is not as disastrous in reality as it is in my mind (the polar opposite to my running form!). On the negative side, while I now know I can swim 50m without stopping, I still can't fathom building that distance up to 750m without stopping. And don't even get me started on what I think of bicycling 20km, either.

Step 1: Cadence

I have no idea how to train for a triathlon. In the past 5 years I think I've swum about 10 laps in a pool, out of which maybe 4 of them were freestyle.
But I have a 750m swim coming up, and that terrifies me! The prospect of dog-paddling 750m in a triathlon is not appealing, so I guess I'd better learn how to swim properly.
I signed up for a triathlon group training on Tuesday nights. It was challenging to know where to start looking but I found one place that didn't seem so bad. They don't do cycling (yet), but I'll be doing a double hitter on Tuesday night of 1hour on the track followed by 1hour in the pool.
After so many weeks off, I was feeling weak and sluggish. I can't even blame it on the red blood cell count any more, no matter how much I'd like to!
Our group is small and intimate, and incredibly friendly. I like them already, even if they're all so much faster than me. We do a 1 hour indoor track workout followed by a 1 hour swim. There's no cycling work-out, so I guess that's one thing I'll have to figure out on my own. Maybe.
I know I can't run outside in winter in Calgary, but the track is barely a step above the hamster wheel. It's like a dog run. The only good thing is being able to people-watch.

I don't know about you, but I'm already bored just looking at this picture.

After a few laps where I reacquainted myself with being unfit, I had An Idea.
There is just under 5 months until my first planned race of the year - a half marathon in June. What if, instead of focussing on getting speed and fitness back, I allowed myself to work solely on getting my running form perfect, and let the speed/fitness come as a result of that? As an added bonus, it gave me the excuse to take the session easy. Win-win!
So I spoke with Coach Mary, and she was all for it.
Focus of the day: cadence. My goal was to get my footsteps to 180 steps/minute. That's 90 steps/30sec. For ease of counting, I counted only one leg and multiplied by two.
Initially I started with a cadence of about 84 steps/30sec. That seems pretty close to 90 steps, sure. But if you add it to a minute I'm 12 steps slower, and then multiply that into a 5k race, that's a lot of difference!
Coach Mary suggested that to get my cadence up I would need to take shorter steps. "So short," she told me, "that it should feel almost ridiculous."
I'm good at ridiculous, so that's exactly what I did. I achieved a cadence of 180 steps/min, now it's just about maintaining that rhythm until my body memorizes how to do it all the time.
After the track I was off to the pool for a swim. The good news is, I'm not as awkward a swimmer as I thought I would be.