Attempt at a Threshold

Well, I finally cracked down on myself and decided to do a threshold run. Supposedly I was meant to be doing them once a fortnight since February. On rough estimate, that means I should have about 11 or so under my belt by now.
I've done one.
Today was my second threshold run. Ever.
So I'm trying to build you up for the excuses I am about to make about running so awkwardly!
The run that was outlined for me by my coach was as follows:
2k warm up + 5k at a pace of around 5.10min/km + 2k warm down

What better run to do this at than ParkRun? Oh, ParkRun, how I've missed you!
I arrived early and did my 2k warm up. I even finished early as I'd agreed to meet a friend for Park Run. But with the threat of rain, he opted to stay in bed. That was fine with me, as I had my training plan that I could focus on.

From the start, it was hard. I couldn't believe I used to run faster than this! The first 2k I struggled to keep my pace under 5.15min/km. Then things started to go downhill pretty quickly. Not the course, mind you. Just my running. The 3rd km I held on through shear determination and pulled in a 5.19.
The 4k and 5k parts were not so good, averaging at a 5.45 and 5.40 pace respectively. Finishing in a time of around 27.15min. How on earth was I getting a sub-25min in May?

Yay! Only 200m to go!

After the run I saw one of my coaches and decided to chat it over with her. Apparently, threshold runs are not so much done to pace as to feel. Huh, wish I'd remembered that before the race!
Threshold runs are meant to be run at a quick pace, but one that you can maintain for 60min. My coach reassured me that this meant some days would be a lot faster than others. Well, clearly I couldn't maintain the pace for 30min let alone 60min!

Still, with another three weeks until my next race, I've got lots of time to learn from my mistakes. If training goes as planned, I hope to peak in August.

Disappointment

After a girl’s weekend away with the friends, I was not feeling at my prime this morning. (I was at the Laura Dance Festival in the town of Laura! Seriously, everyone needs to do a road trip to a town that has their name if possible. The level of awesomeness is pretty high!) 

But despite the aftermath of said amazing road trip, I thought I could pull of a measly 3x 1k reps.

The goal time set for me was 4.43min. I was disheartened when my fellow 4.43ers were set to do 100m strides instead, as it meant I’d have to go it alone. But, only three, right! So off I went.

1^st k: 4.46

2^nd k: 4.50

3^rd k: 4.55

Despite my best effort, I got consecutively 5sec slower per rep. When my coach saw me marking down my times, he was disappointed. It is a mixed feeling to have a coach disappointed in me! On the one side, I’m thrilled he cares enough to notice that I’ve dropped back in speed. On the other side, it’s also nice to have a coach who doesn’t set standards for the group and is happy with any effort. In terms of improvement, I’d rather have a coach who cares more and wants me to push myself harder.

But the best part of his disappointment? It made him sit up and take notice of me…not that he hasn’t noticed me running before. It’s just more that my sub-par times today gave him reason to focus on why I’m not improving. I was once again approached – in a kind way – about my running form, or lack thereof. Next week he has promised to take me back to the drawing boards. I’m thrilled! I could feel today that my form was all over the place, but I had no idea how to fix it.

Semi-Happy Returns

Well after a week with my grandparents in sunny Florida, a week celebrating a friend's grad from vet school in Colorado (yay!) and two weeks rafting down the Grand Canyon with my sister, I returned to...winter.
Yep, the chill in the air and in the house reminded me that it's time to search for my cuddly heating blanket gathering dust under the bed. Siiigh! I'd rather be back in the Arizona desert camping under the stars and barrelling through the rapids.
Is it any wonder that after five weeks of no training I was a bit reluctant to return?
But I wasn't completely a sloth on my vacation! I did, after all, go for - count them - three runs in the past five weeks. Twice in Colorado with my veterinarian friend, and once last Saturday in Brisbane with my fabulous housemate to remind me of what I've been missing for the past month.
Saturday's run was really a warm-up so that I wouldn't be so reluctant this morning to get out there.
I made it as easy as possible to return to training: I went to bed early so I could wake up early (check), I got my gear all set to go so it would be ready in the morning (check), and I'd even been waking up at 5am the previous couple of days for work so I was prepared for the early start (check).
But brrrr, was it cold! And I was nervous, since I knew that today would hurt.
It did.
My coach kept me down for the times I had been running. 5 weeks ago. Before I left.
Today was 5-6x 800m reps at 3k race pace, with a 500m recovery. For me, that was a time of 3.46min. Yikes! After 5 weeks off, I couldn't begin to guess what I would be capable of today.
Fortunately, there was a big group of us "3.46ers" as we called ourselves. But as we got to the start line, everyone had some excuse of why they were not setting the pace. Who would we then benchmark if nobody was stepping up to the plate?
Like a palindrome, the six of us "3.46ers" all jostled around as we tried to find our pace, calling out jokes and encouragements to slow it down or speed it up, depending.

Lap 1: 3.44. Ka-zing! I felt really good this rep. I took a slower recovery but made sure I was back at the start line with my group.

Lap 2: 3.45. There was considerably less joking and talking from the group. And for me, it hurt. Yikes! At least three more of these reps to go!

Lap 3: 3.45. Oh boy, this one was a struggle. I worried about the other two. My coach was impressed that - considering my long break - I was managing as well as I was. I stopped pretending to do the recovery with my group and did my own recovery (aka, a staggering walk as I sucked in air as hard as I could).

Lap 4: 3.52. I just couldn't hold on to it, in the end. My mind - and body - got the best of me. My coach encouraged me to take a longer recover - not just a slower one. But for once I didn't listen to him. Because I knew if I wasn't running with my 3.46ers, I would have no one to benchmark against. And with no one to benchmark against, I would go much, much slower.

Lap 5: 3.48. Ballpark! I'll take that number! It's only 2-seconds off (I count everything within 5sec of the goal time as "ballpark"). I felt like I had run 10 times that distance. Yikes, am I unfit!

Lap 6: are you kidding? While the other gung-ho 3.46ers took off I hung back with everyone else. They had tried to cajole me into going but I was having none of it. I was happy with my training today, and I wanted to end it when I felt good about it.

But racing season is coming up. So it's time for me to crack down on my lazy "whatever" attitude towards training and start following the program my coach has set up for me. Hopefully under his tutelage, I will be seeing a fast return to fitness!

Time for a Vacation

Ahh, Tuesday morning reps. My running schedule this year is all over the place, but I love my Tuesday speed session. If nothing else, it keeps me honest. Especially when I'm always having to write down my times!
Today we did 500m reps with 500m recovery. I love 500m reps. Anything less than 1k is pretty exciting for me.
My goal time was a 4.38 pace, translating to a 2.19min rep. I went out on the first one with the plan of going at a hard pace but not my hardest - my aim was consistency over speed today. We had 7 reps and I knew that if I went my hardest I wouldn't be able to keep the same pace. My split times were as follows:
2.12 / 2.13 / 2.14 / 2.12 / 2.17 / 2.15
A little too much variation for my liking. Just shows I should have slowed the first one down by a bit and kept to that time. But I did focus on my form a little bit. And maybe it's just me...but I think my form is improving a little bit.
I was tired at the end of the session (too much junk food eating has made me much more sluggish this week!). It wasn't long before I realized I'd fallen behind the group, so I picked it up a bit and chatted with one of the girls on the way back. I cut short a corner through the long grass and...

Yep. I hit a hidden stump and over I went. The grass was slick from morning dew and it felt a bit like one of those slip & slides I played on as a kid. Fortunately, I stopped just short of the solid rocky trail. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and finished the last few hundred metres. I noticed a few grass burns and as the morning is progressing my knee is getting a little stiff, but overall, no harm done. Score!
In over 4 years of running I've had such a clean record when it comes to clumsiness. And now I've fallen twice in just over a week! It can only mean one thing... time for a vacation!
Good thing I'm going on a nice long trip to the States this Saturday. Perfect timing, really.

Matching Outfits

Any athlete would tell you that the rules of fashion etiquette don't always (or even often) apply to sports. For example, if I walked into a party and saw another girl in the exact same outfit as me, I would have three socially appropriate responses to this calamity:

1. Walk away and never set foot in that household again. Delete all friends who saw me at said party from all social media accounts, change my phone number, move house, and hermit myself away in shame.

2. Cat-fight with the other gal and scratch her eyes out until she leaves the party and never reigns on my supremacy again.

3. Laugh it off awkwardly and pretend it's not a big deal. Less extreme, but pffft! 

But in sport, matching doesn't really matter. You'll never see two people on the same soccer team cat-fight it out when they arrive in matching outfits. Could you imagine?

Flashback to high school basketball: Even our poses matched.

Running has a similar feel. I don't duck my head in embarrassment whenever I see someone wearing the same race shirt as myself.  And yeesh, if I pulled out of a race every time I saw someone wearing the same shirt as me, I would have run very, very few races in my life! ... Because showing up to a race in the same shirt is like showing up to a match on the basketball court wearing your team uniform - it's a mark of community. In a race, it gives you an instant connection with the other runner and is a time-honoured way of saying "we're in this together".

I think it's for that reason - and for ease of spotting one person in a crowd of hundreds - that most running groups encourage wearing the same outfit, as in any other team sport. 

It's...it's...no, it can't be! But it is! Matching outfits at a race!

So the other day when I went running with Chris she discovered that - oops! - we had the same shirt on (courtesy of the Twilight Running Festival 2013!). Chris immediately asked if she should change her shirt to another.

My first reaction...

Actually, no. I just laughed. Because - like any other team sport - we runners are all in this together.

Do we want to kick your butt and beat you across the finish line? Absolutely! But we'll still be there cheering you on when you finish and encouraging you if you fail to meet your goal. And even if you finish before us, we'll offer our warmest congratulations, even if we're tinged a little green as we do so.

Oh, and as for Saturday morning's run - Chris and I ran a lovely loop around hilly Anzac Park. And yes, we wore matching shirts.

Down From the High

1k sprints this morning. I could feel the lingering bruises from my nose dive on Sunday's run (hello, hip!), but everything was in working order. At first I thought I could use it as an excuse to ease back on my pace, but it was evident during the warm-up that I wasn't really that injured.
There's not much exciting I can say about today. But hey, after such an action packed weekend I think it's time things settled down for me.
We were meant to start off 5sec slower than our 5k race pace and get progressively faster.
My set times as per my coach were 4.53 / 4.48 / 4.43 / 4.38.
My actual split times were as follows: 4.48 / 4.41 / 4.37 /4.50.
Yes, I admit I rather gave up in the last rep. I should've pushed it out...I could've pushed it out. But in my mind I was finished and my legs followed my mind. And looking at it, if you tweak the order of the reps just a little you can see that I really followed the program quite closely.
I'm still trying to focus on my form which I'm hoping is getting less disastrous with every run. I received a few kind comments from my coach along the lines of, "do you remember what I said last time about your arms?" so I guess most of my improvement was in my mind.

Stacked It!

Today marks the day where I have - like a lemur - followed in the footsteps of many a trail runner before me. That's right, I stacked it! Years of running has brought me close to the edge many times. I've tripped, skidded, stumbled, slid, and lurched my way along uneven (or even) surfaces. I've rolled ankles, and had the occasional contact of hand or butt to ground. But I have never before well and truly stacked it.

We started off as a group on Daisy Hill. The first 6k were going beautifully. I felt strong, felt good. Despite the much faster pace than last week I managed to keep up with the crowd. The day was cool, the sun was shining, and everyone was smiling.

You can't see the smiles from this angle, but they were there as we all started out fresh on the trail in the morning.

We turned off on a "single-wide" track designed for mountain bikes. I am slow on natural hazards - and hills, and flat surfaces, and long distances - so today I thought I'd push myself just to the edge of my comfort zone with speed. As I wound my way along the narrow, hazardous trail, I remember my foot hitting a tree root. Next thing I know, I was body surfing along the dirt. Luckily, my forward momentum was stopped short by a tree hitting my shoulder (or was it the other way around?)

I admit I got a bit teary - more from the shock than anything else. But before I could blink twice or register that I was planking in the middle of the trail, my fellow trail runners had surrounded me, helped me to my feet, and were using their water bottles to wash off the worst of the grime. I wasn't sure at first where blood ended and dirt began, but as the stinging lessened I realized the damage was not as bad as I thought. Everything was moving properly, so I set off again - more cautiously! - along the trail.

Innocent looking photos of the single-wide track, which bested two of our number today.

The best thing about trail runners is that almost everyone has stacked it at one point or another. So while they were quick to offer sympathy and anecdotes of their own misadventures, they also understood the importance of standing on your own two feet (so to speak) and didn't try to baby me.

We were only halfway through the trail and the quickest way back was forward, so onward I went! At about 8.5k into the trail I felt like a tire that had suddenly hit a nail: all the energy leaked out of me. When the group split into two, I opted to join the "return straight to carpark" group and left the 15k+ loop to other hardy souls. By the end of the run (~10.75km seemed to be the general consensus regarding distance), I was well and truly exhausted. But hey, everything was still working properly so  it could have been worse.

I wasn't the only one to eat dirt today. Two of my fellow trail runners came back from that trail with misadventures of their own - but that would be their tale to tell, not mine.

Showing off one of my "trophy's" at the end of the run.