What a Great Life

It is good to be reminded of why I love running. Sometimes I get so focussed on the goal…the next race...the personal best… that I forget why it is fun. I know what some of you are thinking! Running + fun = inconceivable!

But on Saturday, I had a “taper” run. Read: short! No need to psyche myself up the night before, no need to start at 4.30am or 5am and run a few km’s before the main group arrives. No need to be on the pavement for over 2 hours and finish feeling utterly spent and sore.

And so, because I was fresh and set when I started out with the main group, and because I knew I didn’t have far to go, I decided to chill out and thoroughly enjoy myself.

The weather was beautiful, the route was one I hadn’t done in years and felt new and exciting, and – best of all – I was surrounded by awesome people to talk to.

It’s funny how it works in running. You set off at a pace and find yourself beside someone so you start chatting to them. In a larger running group, it might be beside an old friend or someone you’ve never met before. Then something shifts – a water stop, a hill, or an obstacle. And suddenly you're beside someone different, so you have a chance to start a new conversation or pick up that conversation you left off with the person last week (“so how did that exam of yours go, by the way?”).

It is quality time of getting to know other people. Conversation is easy as there is always something to talk about – even if it is just running! And there are no awkward silences, as you are still occupied with running and breathing so there is not always a need to talk as there might be if you were, say, sitting down with someone for a coffee.

And because I was so busy yesterday talking to so many people, before I knew it I was back to the start. No pain, no blisters, no sense of exhaustion. I felt fresh and energized for the day. So, of course, time to sit down with my fellow runners and enjoy a cup of tea in the sunshine. In a run so short, I’m back early enough that the morning has barely started. It’s a great life to be a runner.

Total time: 1.03.44min

Total distance: 10.61km

Total elevation: 119m

Average pace: 6.00min/km

How do you spell relief?

...TAPER!!!
It's a good thing I'm starting recovery because my legs are spent! After Saturday's session, I had trouble straightening my left hamstring (this may have come across in the poem). Which meant that Sunday I had a shortened stride that really threw me off.
Fortunately, it is slowly recovering. Unfortunately, not in time for this morning's speed session of 1k reps. I decided to take it easy...and then easier still! I likely could have gone a bit harder, but no sense pushing my hammy past the point of recovery. Not with less than two weeks to the race!
So I did slow reps (~5.45min/km pace) and lots of stretching in between.
I've also spent a bit of time poking around the race site. Yikes!!! I swear it looks harder every time I blink.
It was really fun to just go out and enjoy running with others, rather than trying to push myself to my limit.
I think I'm almost going to miss this "marathon" training. Hmmm...

Homage to Robert W. Service

There are strange things done on a trail run,
By the people who explore.
Mt Coot-tha's trails have their secret tales
That will leave you wanting more.
The pre-dawn light has seen some sights
But the some-est it ever did see.
Was this morning on Owl - on "Powerful Owl"
When we went running - three others and me.

Now keep in mind, yesterday so fine, I had run out 32k.
Why I left my home and the warmth to roam round the Mountain, I cannot say.
But the alarm clock rang and from bed I "sprang" then hobbled to the door.
Though deep down I balled, the trails they called, and for some reason I wanted more.

We met at the park just after dark at a time you can feel dawn's soul
And we wore a smile you could see a mile - to run now was our goal
We started on at the crack of dawn and I swore I would not cave.
Though my hamstrings tensed and through them I sensed that to run I must be brave.

And as we climbed I fell behind - I could go no speed but slow.
I struggled with it and I stumbled a bit but I did not stop, oh no.
And at the top, two others dropped and decided to circle back to home.
And for us two, we thought it through as a debate began to warm.

It was clear to all, I had given my all and my body was fatigued.
But on the trails I was railed and also a little intrigued.
This marked the last of intense trails passed: the next one is my race.
And though tired my body was wired - would I be able to keep a pace?

The decision was made so goodbye we bade to the other two smart ones
We then descended and I pretended that we were almost done.
This part was fun and we chatted some on this beautiful day.
But the truth seemed bleak when we reached Gap Creek - we were now only halfway.

Then around we turned and up we spurned much sooner than I hoped.
For I was tired - no longer wired - and did not know how to cope.
We hit stairs steep and I wanted to weep as my muscles trembled and shook.
Each step burned and my insides churned...running's easier in a book.

I was gasping for breath and I felt like death, from this mountain I wanted to flee.
My mind said go and my legs said no and neither could agree.
But on we went, though my legs were spent, and the Gu was getting low.
Just as things got bleak, I then reached the peak and felt myself start to glow.

We started down with not a frown, though I struggled every step.
I wanted to howl ere we reached Powerful Owl for I feared a bad misstep.
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said, "I'll just take this one real slow.
Since I left my home and the warmth to roam round the mountain, my strength should grow."

Then we reached the road near my abode and I knew that we were done.
My car a beacon for legs so weakened...But still, it was lots of fun.
And now it's time for a word so fine I can shiver in delight.
In my ear comes a whisper dear: taper - how it sounds so right!


There are strange things done on a trail run,
By the people who explore.
Mt Coot-tha's trails have their secret tales
That will leave you wanting more.
The pre-dawn light has seen some sights
But the some-est it ever did see.
Was this morning on Owl - on "Powerful Owl"
When we went running - three others and me.

___
Disclaimer: Okay, so this may be a bit cheating off one of my favourite poems. Also, I have taken the liberty of using artistic license, so some parts may be a hyperbole!

The Dark Side

I had a small procrastination problem earlier this week so as such my blog is a bit behind. This will be a bit of a summary, then.

Tuesday: You win some, you lose some. After 3 weeks in a row of personal bests, I finally broke the record...just not in the way I would have liked! We did 1500m reps, 500m recovery. I started off well, and then faded quickly, as you can see by my reps:
Rep 1: 4.44 pace
Rep 2: 4.59 pace
Rep 3: 5.15 pace
Rep 4: 5.38 pace
That last rep really did me in. I felt shockingly week! Still, I had a big smile on my face. Who needs fast reps when I just ran a fast 10k race?
Total distance: 10.13k (hey! that's only slightly shorter than the race on Sunday!)
Total time: 1.01.05min
Average pace: 6.02min/km

Thursday: As spring has arrived, we are celebrating by hitting the trails once again. Hooray! I love trails. Even if it is much more of a challenge than the road. We did a nice little loop, starting at the top of the mountain. The thing with starting off downhill, you know you're going to finish uphill. Yikes! I always prefer starting on the uphill - then I can relax the rest of the run rather than mentally psyching myself to go up. And of course we ran part of the Kokoda track - the one I ran last Sunday in my trail running. Steep, steep, steep! I had to put my hands down more than once to get my balance on the loose gravel. But we all made it to the top by whatever means we could.
Total distance: 5.64km
Total time: 42.09min
Total elevation: 236m
Average pace: 7.28min/km

Saturday: The day I - quite literally! - joined the dark side. My first 32k run. Yikes! And just because I wasn't worried enough about today, our coach decided to make it interesting by having those of us running longer distances (e.g.: people as dumb as myself) start at 4.30am. Not that it was a personal vendetta against me, as there were many practical reasons for starting at 0430h. But it didn't make me feel any better about going into the run when you could almost say it was still Friday. It was dark, and I was grumpy. I've noticed a correlation between earlier start times and my level of grumpiness.
0600? Sleep in! I'm elated.
0530? I can handle it, let's go!
0500? Hmm...
0430? Better to not take anything I say seriously. No, really.
We meant to go out 5k and back 5k before 5.30am, but in a failed attempt at trying to meet up with the 5am start group, we did the same 5k out & back, twice. I was kind of over it the second time!
Today we took a different route than the past few weeks, running through my old stomping grounds at the University of Queensland and crossing the other side of the river to make a loop.
The tricky part to Saturday mornings for me is starting off with the main group at 5.30am. When I get back from a semi-fast 10k (or 5k), I'm ready for a break. But the gung-ho keeners just starting out for the morning are set to race off into the sunrise. (Okay, not so bad, but you get the picture: I'm tired, they're not. I want a break, they don't.)
At the 0.5k mark my hamstrings were still stiff & sore from hills on Thursday and I knew it would be a long morning.
At the 12k mark I could feel a blister coming on. And would you know it? Same place as all my previous blisters! Go figure.
At the 20k mark (10k mark for those who slept in) I was a bit over it and just wanted to finish. Wish I were only doing 24k today!
At the 22k mark or so we ran into people running a small local race. I saw a sign for half marathon and I was jealous. I have to do a half marathon and then another 11k on top of that. Ugh.
At the 26k mark I said goodbye to my friends, as running to the end with them would have put me at 34k instead of 32k - no thanks!
At the 29k mark I was living misery. My back hurt, my legs hurt and I just wanted it to stop. I think I may have started grunting at this stage. I started doing a countdown, chanting "3k left, 3k left, 3k left" in rhythm with my footfalls. I can't remember whether this was out loud or not. It's all a blur.
At the 30k mark I saw one of my team mates less than 400m in front of me. I mentally called out hello, but I don't think the thought processed enough to reach my lips as she never turned around. I  aslo started chanting "2k left, 2k left, 2k left" And then I promised myself "less than 15min, less than 15min, less than 15min" (yes, I really was going that slow). It's a good thing nobody was with me that time as I may have started either crying or cursing. Or maybe I would have been distracted from my pain and felt great. Who knows?
At the 32k mark I wanted to stop. Oh boy, did I want to stop...but the finish line was right there and I couldn't stop.
At the 32.2k mark I almost couldn't stop, as my legs weren't functioning as well as hoped and kept trying to run in the same pattern they had been for the past 3+ hours. I was like a runaway train hitting the brakes on a steep downwards drop. And then like a treadmill whose emergency button has been pulled, I staggered to a halt. Finished.
There was a small feeling of triumph, but that was mostly smothered by the pain. Oooh, not looking forward to tomorrow's run!

Total time: 3.31.17min
Total distance: 32.23min
Total elevation: 495m
Average pace: 6.26min/km

ps - no, I didn't cry on this run.

Bridge to Brisbane: Personal Best!

Well, I can say this with great joy: GOAL ACHIEVED!!!
You may remember my running goal this year was to achieve a personal best in a distance I have raced. Well, despite all the downs of the year I finally managed to align the stars for a race. This race. The Bridge2Brisbane 10k fun run.
And to think I almost didn't sign up for it! So focussed on my Whitsunday run, I had half decided to give this one a miss before changing my mind.
My personal best in this distance was from Doomben in 2009, when I ran 54.18min. I have had a few other 10k runs, but never did the stars seem to align properly...

Noosa 10k (May) - I was battling a knee injury and paced myself wrong
Doomben 10k (June) - I started the race over-heated trying to keep dry from the rain
Park2Park 10k (July) - after 4 weeks of holidays, I didn't actually expect to get a pb on this hilly course
Brisbane Festival 10k (July) - one week after Ipswich Park2Park, I just wanted to get a better time than that disaster

So, on to this race! (I know everyone's dying to hear what I got...we'll get to that). It started up a hill. A big looong hill. Well, actually it started a couple hours before that, with the alarm going off at 3.45am, a drive, a walk & a bus ride before I got to the start shortly after 5am. And brrrr, it was cold! I may have started singing children's French songs and doing the gestures to them to try and keep warm, but it's all a bit of a blur.
My running friends and I finally crossed the start line around 6.15am among 29.000 other people running the 10k that morning. And then we hit the Gateway bridge, climbing for just over 1k and tall enough to allow large ships pass underneath. I quickly lost the rest of my crew at that point - I was in for my own race.
I let myself go slow up over the bridge (about a 6min pace) - no sense pushing it too hard at the start! I gained speed on the way down, going down to a 5min pace. As the hill flattened to level ground and I kept that 5min pace up easily for the next 2k, I knew I could do a pb in this race if I played it smart. So, despite the lack of fatigue, I kept pulling myself back to sit between a 5.15-5.20 pace.
At 7k, I was still feeling good and started to pick it up a bit. Then the second hill came.
Despite my best efforts, I started to slow as the hill really took it out of me. But darned if I was going to lose out on a pb so close to the end! As my breathing became rapid and wheezy, I remembered a trick someone had taught me for controlling it back down. A silly little trick that I honestly thought would never work - until it did. Go figure.
So as we came down and around that hill and around the corners I just kept focussing on my breathing and going as hard as I could.
I can't say I finished with my typical kick at the end, but I finished in 54.00min, and that's good enough for me.

Total distance: 10.18km
Total time: 54.00min
Total elevation: 110m
Average pace: 5.18min

And for interest sake, if I cut off the extra 0.18km tacked onto the 10k and went with a 10.00km time, that would have been 50 seconds faster. However, I'm counting the race distance as the official time, rather than my Garmin. It's only fair.

Indecision

I couldn't decide what distance to run today. I knew I would run between 12-24k, but that's a rather large gap! Even as we started the run, I really didn't know how far I would run.
Rationale for running 24k: 1) it's in my program, 2) this is the second last big training weekend before the Whitsunday race, 3) tomorrow's race is just a fun run, and is only 10k
Rationale for running less than 24k: 1) I have a 10k race tomorrow, 2) I have a nasty painful blister on my foot which I've nicknamed "the angry blister"...it used to be 4 blisters overlying one another but they've since united into one. 3) I've been really tired the past week and could use a day off.
Laziness won out! I was willing to go 16k, might have even gone 20k...but I didn't want to end up limping all day as I did on Thursday. I guess in the end the mental battle won out before my feet even hit the ground. For me to run over 16k, I need to psyche myself up for it.
So when a friend turned around just after 7k, so did I. We had a lovely chat on the way back and kept the pace nice and easy. (Okay, I kept it nice and easy and had to keep reminding my friend to pull it back).

Total distance: 14.41km
Total time: 1.26.11
Average pace: 5.59min/km

Aaaah, what a great rest day!

The Cookie Dough Diet

Food is a funny topic, especially among women. Everyone has different rituals and taboos.

Ritual:: don't eat before a run.

Argument: they'll be sick.

Me: If I don't eat before a run, I'll crash and burn within 2k - and then I'll get sick.

Taboo: don't eat chocolate before X (e.g. 11am, lunch, etc.)

Argument: because chocolate is bad for you?

Me: I'm more loose on this one... Lately, my post-run "second breakfast" has included cookie dough.

Yep, I joke not. I made a batch of cookie dough on the weekend to bake cookies fresh for a dinner I'm attending tonight. In a flash of insight I even made a double-batch, for extra extra cookie dough goodness to kick me off before work. All this week after training I found myself grabbing a bite of it on my way to work...or maybe two bites.

And it doesn't stop at the cookie dough. My training has become so intense that I find myself eating two of everything in sight. I try to keep the healthy foods at eye-level, but at the end of the day I need calories and more calories to fight the lethargy and exhaustion (so I tell myself). What a great feeling!

A more serious athlete than I sees food as fuel for the body and eats appropriately - why fill up on diesel petrol when the engine needs premium? I instead see exercise as a "get in free" pass to any food I want. It's not often I get this guilt-free pass to the buffet table, so I'm taking advantage as much as I can. Is it impeding on my running? Sure. Is it worth it? Absolutely!

Today was a tough day. We did a few reps (a few being 4) up a steep, steep hill to begin. The sign on the hill said 30% grade - that's steep! Then we looped up and around and down and back up. That's a summary. Actually, we wound our way around my home running grounds, which was kind of nice. Sadly, this morning I was absolutely lethargic. I could bring up the energy to run, but it was slow. Even on the reps, it was all I could do to get up the hill - speed was not an option. One foot in front of the other, mouth shut to prevent any whining. Some days that's the best I can do.

Total time: 52.29

Total distance: 6.99km

Average pace: 7.30min/km

Total elevation: lots!