But I Have REALLY GOOD Excuses This Time

Running has happened. So have LOTS of excuses of why I couldn't run.
First, there was a niggling knee. Better to rest than risk further injury, right?
Then, there was the snow storm. No one does summer snow storm like Calgary. Who wants to run in a snow storm?

 Snow? Ice? Falling trees? Downed power lines? Psshhh! It just makes the run all the more interesting...**

 ...Said me never. I stayed home, thanks. I drank hot tea and smiled because I still had electricity.

Okay, lots of Calgarians grabbed extra layers and braved the elements to keep up their training. I still consider myself more of a Brisbanite when it comes to "good running weather". Give me hot and humid over ice and falling trees any day.
Then, because it's Calgary after all, the weather turns back to hot and glorious with the snap of ones fingers and...I get a COLD. Ugh.

So I spent last week feeling miserable for myself, sniffling and hacking and shivering in the hot summer sun. I cancelled my long run on Sunday. While I was on the mend, I wasn't quite back in the "let's run for 2 hours" energy mode .

Monday came along and my sister let me know that she was running. In the early evening, that is.
And for once, I was more than keen to go for an evening run. I'm sure it had everything to do with
a) guilt over missing two 18k runs in a row!
b) impending half marathon. I should at least do a little training before the event!
c) freaking out over Australian taxes (Thank goodness that in just a few more weeks, I will only have one tax year to give me headaches rather than two.)

Still, by 7k my energy had run out. We opted to do a figure 8 around our houses to hit maximum pretty park with fall leaves (most of the paths have now been cleared of dangerous dangling tree limbs and fallen debris. Points to the city for hopping on the clean-up bandwagon) and also to minimize distance from home. Just in case.
I did end up turning back early on the last loop as my shin started to give me an alarming pain. But fortunately after a couple minutes of walking it eased back.
So we didn't quite do 18k. It was more like 17k. But that is at least 10k more than I might otherwise have done today, so I'm A-OK with that.

**Thanks for letting me steal your photo, Bill! The other two are courtesy of google.

Falling Apart

I've been blessed in my running life to be a person who doesn't experience many chronic injuries. Acute injuries, sure (I've been on crutches 5 times in my life! All of those times were from spraining an ankle while playing sports/exercising). But rarely chronic.
So on yesterday's long run, I was very disappointed when I started off the run with a twinge in my knee. I'd gone hiking the day before in beautiful Drumheller, and I know I did something to my knee when sliding down the steep paths in my sandals, since by the end of the day it definitely hurt going down stairs.
But anyway, about that running.
I started my 16k long run 7.30am and my friend happened to be starting at that time as well. (Most half marathoners start at 8.30am). So we wound our way along the river, having a great conversation. By 4k my knee had definitely moved from "twinge" to "sore". But it wasn't that sore, and I knew it would hold out for the run.
At 6k my friend suggested we turn around early, then just add an extra add-on at the end with whatever distance we had left. This would have been a great opportunity to say, "yes, please!" and do so. The benefit being that if my knee started getting worse, I could simply cut the run short.
But I didn't want to. I had never run that route before and was really, really curious to see what was around the corner. And the next corner. And the one after that. And...you get the idea.
So we didn't turn around until 8k. And the logical part of my mind was mockingly singing to me, you're gonna regret this! And the irrational part of my mind was sticking it's tongue out at the logical part and saying, nya nya. No I'm not!
The best part of long runs is the company I keep, and I had a stellar conversation with my friend. So the time back felt really fast.
With two kms to go, I suggested to my friend that she speed up to feel what race pace might feel like on tired legs. I told her I wasn't going to go much (if any) faster, because I wanted to look after my knee. Off she went, and I picked up my own pace a little bit more. I couldn't help it. I have a bit of a competitive streak and I was morbidly curious to see how far I could push my stupid knee.
At 15.7k as I was coming near the finish, my ankle (same leg as my sore knee), started to twinge, and I could feel it about to give out. Yikes!
I quickly slowed down to more of a recovery pace. My ankle continued to wibble and wobble but got no worse, so I eased myself through the last 300m of the run.
I'm writing this the next day, and while my ankle is fine, my knee is definitely on the sore side. We'll see what the week brings, but I may need to take a bit of rest before I run some more. Now that I'm not running, the logical part of my brain is reminding me that my body is too precious to push it to the point of falling apart.

That's What Friends Are For

Every now and then someone approaches me about something I've written on my blog. It is always a surprise, because typing into the void of cyberspace, I really don't expect anyone to read this (but thanks to the awesome people who do!)
So when a friend suggested we motivate each other by going for a run together, my first thought was, "wow, you read my blog?!" and my second thought was, "Fantastic! My whining on my keyboard has turned into a productive solution!"
It's friends like that who really keep me going when times are down. The ones who say, "yeah, I know where you're at. I'm there too. Let's join forces to get ourselves out of this and into a better place."
So now we've joined forces to kick our unmotivation in the pants and get out there and train. And you know what? I'm feeling better about running. I'm getting just a bit more excited about it.
And it shows! I kicked ass so much in my 30-minute tempo run on Tuesday that a couple people commented, showed up for hills on Wednesday (recently, just showing up is considered a Good Day) and today did a fun and easy 5k with two great gals.
Because sometimes you need a kick in the pants to find motivation. Other times you need a friend to take hold of your hand and lead you to a better place.
I don't know what next week will bring, or any of the weeks after that. But I'm grateful for where I'm at now.

Smiling and happy after our 16k jaunt: John, Steff, and Me (at that time, not intentionally wearing a shirt with her name on it!)

Countdown to the Day After

I have come to the conclusion that I am rather unfit. Today's 16k (okay, maaaybbbee it was 15.75k) felt tough for a lot of the run. We kept a steady pace of around 6.15min/km but from the get-go I was counting down until the next walk break.
But the conversations were lively and the route was scenic. I attempted to do the last 1.5k around race pace to see how it felt. Not as good/easy as I would have liked.
Hmmm. Maybe I should focus less on lying on the couch eating chocolate and more on getting my running shoes laced up to actually go for a run. There is, after all, only 7 weeks until race day!
I can't remember the last time I was so unmotivated for a half marathon. Have I ever been unmotivated for a half marathon? Right now, I'm more motivated to get to October 13th, when the race is finito and no more training is required.

No Longer a Distance Runner

You know you're no longer a distance runner when 14k feels like a reaaaalllyyyy looooooonnnnggg sllllooooogggg.

Ugh.

To Marathon or Not to Marathon

Change is in the air. Or maybe it is in my heart.

Regardless, something has happened since I moved back to Calgary. In Brisbane, I had a large contingency of great running friends and looked forward (sort of) to waking up at 4.45am to meet my friends and work hard at a run. The excitement of signing up for races together and cheering each other on was amazing. And who can forget those Long Slow Runs on the weekend, where we would nestle in with our cozy pace group and talk incessantly for 2+ hours, only to follow-it up with breakfast, tea, and even more talk!

To everyone I ever ran with in Brisbane: you put the smile on my face at 5.30am.

Now I'm in Calgary, and the running scene is...different. No longer in the morning, the sessions are now in the evening, on our own, or "late" Sunday morning (really, 8.30am is considered late to start a 2-3 hour run, isn't it?!). And runs in the evening are...not my thing. There is the dilemma of should I squeeze in some food after work before running and run on a heavy stomach, or wait until late in the evening when I get home? And then there is the fact that there are so many other fun things to do in the evening, that running has been starting to feel like an obligation more than a higlight.

It is no secret that I have been planning to run a marathon for my 30th birthday next year. The debate has previously been between Chicago or New York (assuming I squeeze in to one of them!). But when visiting my parents at my dad's log cabin, I made a mistake of passing by a kennel and looking at the puppies. You see, after running my first marathon next year, my thoughts were drifting towards "retirement" from serious running so I can focus my energies on a dog. But now I'm thinking, why wait? If I'm struggling for motivation to train for a half marathon, what will suddenly rev me up for the full marathon training?

I mean, there is something to be said for both options. There are two ways I can think about this decision. Like this:

Or like this...

86

I had signed up for a 10k race with good ole MEC. It was a last minute decision. I needed to get a few extra k's under my feet but I didn't want to exhaust myself with a race. The idea, I decided, was to practise.
I had two goals in mind:
1. To discover what it feels like (at this point) to run at my goal race pace for 10k
2. To work on my running cadence and form.

When the gun went off, I enjoyed the lack of self-inflicted pressure to perform well. I hung towards the back of the crowd.
It was interesting to be taking it easy. I passed some people at the 2nd km that were already gasping. I'm not sure how they were going to manage the next 8k!

As far as goal 1 goes, I wasn't expecting much. In half marathons I can usually keep on target race pace until 12k or so, and then I start slowing down. So just to go 10k, I didn't think I'd hit that point of fatigue. And I didn't.
But I got a good feel for what a 5min40sec pace feels like, and with the exception of the 8k mark, every other km was within 5sec of that goal time. I felt slightly fatigued at the end but nothing unmanageable. Still, I have a long way to go before I could maintain that pace for twice the distance.
It was also of interest to note how many people I passed on the second half of the course. Ah yes, those runners just like me who deceive themselves into believing "I can hold this pace for 10k easy!" and then don't. Poor suckers. How well I know your frustrations!

I focussed on keeping as steady a pace as I could, and at the same time I periodically counted my cadence, to see how fast my feet were hitting the pavement.
I've been told that ideally a person's cadence is 180 foot strikes per minute. There is no way I could count every footstep (and it is in fact especially hard when I am near other runners and get confused as to who's foot is hitting the ground when), so I did what most people do and divided in half to count every step on one foot. So my goal number ended up being 90. I really worked on keeping my cadence fast. But this also typically means my speed picks up, so it was a joint effort of fast cadence/easy pace.
Most times I got 86. There were a few 84s and I even went down as slow as 80 when I wasn't paying attention. But no matter how "fast" I told my feet to go, I seemed stuck at 86.
Oh well. At least it's not too far off!